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Idylls of the Bible

Chapter 19: SIMON’S FEAST.
By Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
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About This Book

A series of lyrical and dramatic reworkings of biblical narratives and devotional poems that recast familiar scriptural episodes as intimate scenes and moral reflections. Scenes dramatize pivotal moments—an infant rescued on a river, exchanges between royal figures and nurturers—while other pieces offer compact moral parables and domestic monologues meditating on suffering, charity, and faith. Language alternates between theatrical dialogue, descriptive lyricism, and moral exhortation, emphasizing themes of compassion, maternal love, liberation, and personal conscience. The collection invites readers to reconsider sacred stories through emotive characterization and accessible moral verse.

SIMON’S FEAST.

He is coming, she said, to Simon’s feast,
The prophet of Galilee,
Though multitudes around him throng
In longing his face to see.
He enters the home as Simon’s guest,
But he gives no welcome kiss;
He brings no water to bathe his feet—
Why is Simon so remiss?
The prophet’s face is bright with love,
And mercy beams from his eye;
He pities the poor, the lame and blind,
An outcast, I will draw nigh.
If a prophet, he will surely know
The guilt of my darkened years;
With broken heart I’ll seek his face,
And bathe his feet with my tears.
No holy rabbi lays his hand
In blessing on my head;
No loving voice floats o’er the path,
The downward path I tread.
Unto the Master’s side she pressed,
A penitent, frail and fair,
Rained on his feet a flood of tears,
And then wiped them with her hair.
Over the face of Simon swept
An air of puzzled surprise;
Can my guest a holy prophet be,
And not this woman despise?
Christ saw the thoughts that Simon’s heart
Had written upon his face,
Kindly turned to the sinful one
In her sorrow and disgrace.
Where Simon only saw the stains,
Where sin and shame were rife,
Christ looked beneath and saw the germs
Of a fair, outflowering life.
Like one who breaks a galling chain,
And sets a prisoner free,
He rent her fetters with the words,
“Thy sins are forgiven thee.”
God be praised for the gracious words
Which came through that woman’s touch
That souls redeemed thro’ God’s dear Son
May learn to love him so much;
That souls once red with guilt and crime
May their crimson stains outgrow;
The scarlet spots upon their lives
Become whiter than driven snow.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
28 The king’s degree hung like a gloomy pall The king’s decree hung like a gloomy pall
  • Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.