The Woman Who Anointed The Feet Of Jesus

Thanks to Frank Sonnek for introducing me to this sonnet about the sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50. It’s by the son of the great Romantic poet Samuel T. Coleridge! (Just as the great hymnwriter Christopher Wordsworth was the nephew of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Both Romantic poets, who together penned the revolutionary Lyrical Ballads, would become conservative Christians.) The title of this poem is Latin for “she loved much,” since, as Jesus said, “he is forgiven little, loves little,” and vice versa. This makes a fine meditation for Holy Week. (If you know of others, give a link in the comments.)

“Multum Dilexit”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849)


SHE sat and wept beside His feet; the weight
Of sin oppress’d her heart; for all the blame,
And the poor malice of the worldly shame,
To her was past, extinct, and out of date:
Only the sin remain’d,—the leprous state;	5
She would be melted by the heat of love,
By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove
And purge the silver are adulterate.
She sat and wept, and with her untress’d hair
Still wip’d the feet she was so bless’d to touch;	10
And He wip’d off the soiling of despair
From her sweet soul, because she lov’d so much.
I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears:
Make me a humble thing of love and tears.