William Cleaver Wilkinson

“ Burst from Paul's eyes and fell a sunlit shower,
While all the rest beholding wept with Paul—
"Form, for her sake, our well-belovéd, dear,
Must we then leave thee in the dust of earth?
But not as thus we leave thee wilt thou rise!
[585] Thou in corruption wilt lie waiting here,
But thou shalt rise, to incorruption changed;
Thou wilt sleep darkling underneath the clod,
But thence in glory shalt thou waking burst;
In weakness buried, thou shalt rise in power.
Mary the image of the earthy bore,
She shall the image of the heavenly bear:
Comfort yourselves, belovéd, with such hope." ”

“ To mingle with things sacred so—I think
Perforce now of a certain tragedy
I read once by that Grecian Sophocles,
Wherein a Theban king, one Œdipus,
Denounces on a murderer frightful doom,
Dreaming not he—though every reader knows—
The murderer he so curses is himself.
I shudder when I think, 'Were it to be
That the fierce blasting I invoked to fall
Upon another's head, I drew on mine:
"Cursing he loved, and cursing fell on him!"'
Forefend it God, and Christ with blessing fill
This heart of mine, too hasting prone to hate!"
"Amen!" said Paul, "thou prayest for me and thee!" ”

“ Luke said,
"Paul turned toward where I stood—O, how I wished
There had been many others with me then
To hear what I heard, and to take his look,
That kindling look of large vicarious hope!—
Paul turned toward me his heaven-illumined face,
And added: 'Yea, for me holds—nor for me
Alone, but with me all men also who
Have loved the bright appearing of the Lord.
'I have been bound, but not the word of God;
That has run freely, sped around the world.
I am to die, but the quick word of God,
So much incapable of dying, lives
Forever an invulnerable life. ”

“ That to thy peace belong! But they are hid
Now from thine eyes. For days will come on thee—'
And then such dreadful days he told us of—
Days which our holy apostles think are nigh,
Whence their 'Maranatha!' so often heard,
Reminder watchword of the Lord at hand,
They solemnly adjuring by the days
Reserved for our Jerusalem, a wrath
To come upon her to the uttermost
Then when He, with the angels of His power,
And as the lightning shineth suddenly
Ablaze from one end to the other of heaven,
Shall back return in clouds to execute
His judgment on the city that slew Him! ”

“ My Stephen has pondered deep these things,
And to result of truth well worth his pains.
Thou hast profited, my son, perhaps beyond
Thine own thought of thy profiting, in sweet
Acquist of wisdom from the mind of Christ.
Fair change, change fair and great, in thee since when
Thou cursedst Shimei in that bitter psalm!—
Bitter from thee who saidst it bitterly.
Behold, thou art fain, forsooth, to find those words,
Those same words now which then thou likedst well
Rolling them under thy tongue a morsel sweet,
Almost too human for at all divine. ”

“ I only thought, I could but only think—
Why, see, Paul was Gamaliel's pupil once,
And loved his master, so as such can love;
At least I thought so. Paul, for sure I know,
Gamaliel like a doting father loved."
"Thou dost not thus explain, 'It was not meant';
Out with thy thought, sir Jew," the chiliarch said.
"What was not meant? By whom not meant? Forsooth,
Not by Gamaliel meant that he should die?
Except the suicide, none means to die;
And death like this is not the suicide's."
"Oh, nay, sir," Shimei said, "no suicide
Was our Gamaliel; far the heinous thought! ”

“ So had Paul learned to let the peace of Christ
Rule in his heart, a fixed perpetual calm,
Like the deep sleep of ocean at his core
Of waters underneath the planes of storm.
And Stephen answered: "Oh, with God, with God!
And blesséd be His name that thus I choose!"
"Yea, verily," Paul said, "for He sole it is
Who worketh in us, both to will and work
For the good pleasure of His holy will.
As thou this fashion of obedience
Obediently acceptest at His gift,
So growest thou faithful mirror to reflect
Clear to thyself, and just, the thought of God. ”

“ Paul further said: "O Felix, Cæsar's sway
Over this world, inevitable thus,
Subduing all, is yet but image pale
Of the supreme dominion absolute
Which to Christ Jesus in the heaven belongs.
The captives of the emperor need but wait
Patient a while and sure release arrives;
Since death at least, to all, or soon or late,
Comes, one escape at last from Cæsar's power,
Who owns no empire in that world beyond.
But of that world beyond, no end, no bound,
Whither we all must flee in fleeing hence,
Still the Lord Christ abides eternal King;
Death is but door to realm of His more wide. ”

“ The runaway's heart was wholly won to Paul;
And ere those parted at Puteoli
Onesimus had gladly promised Stephen
To seek his uncle out, arrived in Rome.
A sequel thence redounded to the slave
Of boundless blessing he had dreamed not of;
Likewise of good to men in every age
Wherever might be found fit soul to be
Ennobled to the touch of noble thought,
In answerable style with nobleness
Conveyed, and purified fine feeling, borne
To perfect heavenly-mindedness yet sweet
And tender with a pulsing human love.
For Felix and Drusilla, disembarked,
No welcome waited and no warm godspeed ”

“ But, uncle, did not God inspire the psalm?"
"Doubtless, my Stephen," Paul replied; "but not,
Not therefore, thee inspire to use the psalm.
Sound thine own heart now, nephew, and tell me,
Which was it in thy heart that prayed the prayer—
True vehemence in sympathy with God,
Or vehemence against thy brother man?
A sentiment of sympathy with me
Thou canst not say, for I have no such wish
As that thou breathedst, touching any man."
"Though not in sympathy with thee, at least
For thy sake," Stephen said, "mine anger burned." ”

“ She yet might see her heart's desire on Paul.
What if thou dost, Drusilla! Thou wilt see
The hated dying, not as one who dies,
Rather as one who, borne aloft and crowned,
Rides celebrating triumph over death!
The while thou seest exalted to the place
Thou fain hadst purchased for thyself with crime
Poppæa, empress by the emperor throned,
Spouse in the room of young Octavia slain.
Go, wretched woman, with thy little son
Beside thee, down the valley of the years—
Years few and evil, full of many woes—
Until thou shalt with him be overwhelmed
In that volcano ruin, thy fit doom! ”

“ To tell thee, O lord Felix, to thy face,
[403] That I am servant of the Most High God,
Subject as such to no man's bidding, thine
Or other's, and not free to mine own choice.
Yet so I half misrepresent myself,
For to mine own choice I feel wholly free,
My choice being His who works in me to choose.
Toward Simon, although he love me not, I bear,
God is my witness, no ill will; instead,
Would I could serve him! and perhaps I might,
I know not, were his heart but right with God.
Let him renounce his ways of wickedness;
God to all men is good who will repent. ”

“ And they now knew the doom required for Paul.
Paul was left lonely of all men save Luke;
But Luke the faithful chose with him his part.
Paul longed for Timothy, and wrote to him
Bidding him haste and bring John Mark to Rome.
But the end hasted more than these could haste,
And Timothy was never in the flesh
To greet again that father of his soul
Who, for the son's sake more than for his own,
Yearned toward the son to fix in him his faith
Seen nigh to falter in the face of things
Such as now fronted Paul. ”

“ Is nigh enough to us for us to help.
Sick and in prison Jesus we might find
In Shimei, if for Jesus' sake we go
And carry him the solaces of love!"
"But he, will he receive what we should bring?"
Said Rachel; "would not bitter-making thought
Welling up in him like a secret spring
Of brackish issue gushing from beneath
A crystal runlet pure as Siloa's brook,
Turn for him all our sweetness into gall?"
"Perhaps, perhaps," said Paul; "we cannot know.
That were for thee and me defeat indeed—
To be of evil overcome! But, nay,
Nay, Rachel, let us hope, and overcome
Evil with good. ”

“ Of hidden things and hard to understand,
The pathos of the mystery of the world,
The human strife, with the defeat foregone
Companioning the strife and ending it—
Yet ending not a strife that could not end,
But ever, round and round, one dull defeat,
Trod the treadmill of fate, no hope, no goal.
A gentle-mannered man, but sad of cheer,
Krishna his name, pilgrim of many climes,
Not idly curious to behold and learn,
But hiding pity in his heart for men
Seen everywhere the same, poor blinded moles
Toiling and moiling in the sunless mines
Of being, where no joy, whence no escape. ”

“ Shimei, far more than clear and confident,
Felt also something of the fowler's joy
In cunning, as for Paul his toils he spread.
All this; yet all was not enough to fire
The hate that burned sevenfold in Shimei's breast.
[23] With all, there was an alien element
Infused, Tartarean fuelling from beneath,
A breath of hell to blow his hate so hot.
No merely human hatred crucified
The Lord of glory and the Lord of love!
No merely human hatred followed Paul
On his angelic errand round the world,
With scourge, with ambush, with imprisonment,
And mouth agape to drink that holy blood! ”

“ Was parted from thee for a little time
That thou mightst have him for thine own forever,
As slave no longer, but above a slave,
Brother belovéd now, greatly to me,
But how much more to thee, both in the flesh
And in the Lord! If then a partner's place
I hold in thy regard, receive thou him
Even as myself. If he have wronged thee aught,
Or anywise have fallen in debt to thee,
Put that to mine account.'
Until these words,
Paul had let Stephen catch with ear alert
What issued hastening from his fervid lips,
And fix it on the parchment with swift hand. ”

“ Express not human hate, but hate divine,
Revealed in forms of human speech, and, too,
Inspired in whoso can the height attain
To side with God, and passionlessly damn,
As if with highest passion, any found—
Whom, known not yet, even to himself not known,
Much less to thee or me, but known to God,
And to be known, in that great day, to all—
Fixed in his final choice of evil for good.
Henceforward, Stephen, when thou sayest that psalm,
Say it and tremble, lest thyself be he,
The man thou cursest in its awful curse! ”

“ Saves thee, thou trustest, through new life bestowed,
Which makes thee other than thou wast before,
And therefore frees thee from the fatal yoke
And bondage of the karma thou hadst won
With labor when thou wast the former man:
The words are easy, but the sense is hard."
"Hard?" Paul said; "nay, outright impossible
To any soul of man that still abides
His old first natural self unchanged to new.
Submit thyself unto the righteousness
Of God, and thou the mystery shalt know
With knowledge deeper than the mind's most deep
Divinings of the things she cannot speak." ”

“ God was as wise when He inspired those psalms
As when in Christ he bade us ever love,
Love even our enemies and do them good.
Submit thyself to God, my Stephen, and be
Humble; for God resists the proud, but gives
Grace to the humble still and grace for grace—
Grace given already, ground for added grace.
Grow then in grace thus, and be meekly wise.
I have spoken divining what thy meaning was,
Perhaps amiss"—and Paul refrained from more.
But Stephen answered: "If such was my thought,
At least I did not know it to be such,
As thou hast thus divined it now for me. ”

“ Paul saw this, less admiring what he saw,
Beautiful though it was and wonderful,
Than musing what it seemed to mean for him:
'So my soul on her voyage through the world
Lights her own pathway as she moves along;
Bright ever where she is she makes her place,
And ever plunges on into the dark
Before her; but her latter end is light!'
Meanwhile, of all the lingerers on the deck
Amid that darkness, only two remained.
These, as they might, watched him now bending there
In wistful gaze over the vessel's side
Downward into the waters weird below:
Stephen was one; the other, Shimei. ”

“ Thus Julius, dallying, teased to wrath his scorn,
More threatening as in luxury of reserve
Suspended from the outbreak yet to fall.
The while the scornful Roman's wroth regard
Fixed as if caustic fangs upon the Jew,
The Jew, with stoic endurance, steeled himself
To take it without blenching. Full well felt
Through all his members was that branding look;
Though his eyes still were downward bent, as when
He dropped them to refuse Paul's sweet good will.
But suddenly now, he one first furtive glance
Lifting, as if unwillingly, to Paul,
Shimei takes on a violent change reverse. ”

“ Paul interrupted his discourse with pause.
He eased the pressure on his heart with prayer,
While Krishna slowly, softly, sadly said:
'Sin as transgression of a law supreme;
Law as expression of a living Will;
Nay, the existence of a living Will
Sovereign over an ordered universe;
Much more, a Heart behind the Will to feel
Pity and love, such pity and such love,
Not idle passion but at work to save,
Save at vicarious cost so great—these thoughts,
[547] Ill canst thou know how new they are to me,
How strange! Sin, sin—and sinner I, for this,
That I do not believe on him! ”

“ A new regenerate man at one with God,
For to the law of God agreed in will,
Replaced the carnal with the spiritual mind,
Warfare and death exchanged for life and peace."
Into Paul's voice, he ceasing with those words,
There slid a cadence as of reverie:
He seemed to muse so deeply what he said
That he less said than felt it; 'life' and 'peace,'
So spoken, no mere sounds upon the tongue,
Were audible pulses of the living heart.
Invasion thence of power seized Krishna's soul,
And, 'Life and peace!' he murmured, 'Life and peace!'
But said aloud: "Strange union, peace with life! ”

“ As living in the person and the name,
As living therein only, of the Lord
Jesus, to God the Father giving thanks
By Him.
"And now to Him that loved us, Him
That washed us from our sins in His own blood,
And made us kings and priests to God His Father—
To Him dominion be, and glory, given
For ever and for evermore! Amen!"
Krishna soon after came to Paul and said:
"The sense of resurrection power I feel
Within me working to sustain my will
In striving upward as thou bidst toward God
I take it as a warrant and a proof
That Christ lives and exerts it from above. ”

“ Over the face of Mary speaking now
A moment of sarcastic humor played—
"A woman herself possessed, then dispossessed,
Of demon inhabitants, may be forgiven
A little natural scorn to be assured
That she was only shaken in her wits!"
And Mary so recovered with a smile
The sweet and holy candor of her face.
But now an interruption—for there came
Rudely, from Felix sent, a minion who,
With little Felix following him, to Paul
Drew nigh and said: "My master bids thee come,
For Simon whom he honors has fallen sick,
And he would have thee heal him." ”

“ Toward Stephen sitting nigh them but apart;
He and Eunicé sat together there.
[212]
"Cling to thy lovely letter," Paul replied,
"'A little,' as thou sayest it, not too much—
The 'little,' as the 'not too much,' God's will
For thee, my sister; and, a paradox!
The little will be more when not too much.
It is the spirit makes the letter dear,
Or dearest, as it is itself more dear.
We better love the earthly images
Of things in heaven, when we those heavenly things
Themselves more than their loveliest shadows love." ”