The Epic of Saul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

SAUL AND THE APOSTLES.

So one day more of bitterness had spent
Saul, and the night, the solemn night, came on,
Grateful to him, for he would be alone.
Whether the thought of home, no home, repelled,
Or longing toward his sister unconfessed
There in that banishment at Bethany
Bright with her presence in it—whether this
Drew him, or wish of lonely room and height
Where more he might from human kind be far—
However listing, Saul to Olivet
Turned him, and slowly to the summit climbed.

The moon not risen yet, the hemisphere
Of heaven above him was with clustered stars
Glittering, and awful with the glory of God.
Upward into those lucid azure deeps,
Withdrawn, deep beyond deep, immeasurably,
Gazing, Saul said: "Deep calleth unto deep!
Those deeps above me unto deeps within
Me cry, as infinite to infinite.
The spaces of my spirit answer back;
I feel them, empty but capacious, vast
And void abysses of unfed desire,
Hunger eternal and eternal thirst!
Upward I gaze, and see the steadfast stars
Unshaken in their station calmly shine,
I listen to the silence of the skies
And yearn, with what desire! for peace like that,
Vainly, with what desire! for peace like that!
Beneath the pure calm of the holy heaven,
So nigh! here am I seething like the sea,
That cannot rest, casting up mire and dirt
Continually! O state forlorn! Where, where,
My God, for me is rest? For me, for me!
'Great peace have they,' so sang that psalmist taught
By Thee, 'Great peace have they that love Thy law
And nothing shall offend them.' Answer me,
Lord God, do I not love Thy law? Then why
This opposite of peace within my breast?
Am I deceived? Do not I love Thy law?
Answer me Thou!"
But answer came there none,
Or Saul was deaf, and the great sky looked down,
With all its multitude of starry eyes,
Impassible, upon a human soul
Wretched, unrespited from long unrest.

The weary man upon a spot of ground
Bare to the heaven had thrown himself supine;
Lying diffuse, his wistful face upturned,
And poring on the starry-scriptured scroll
Above him, he such thoughts breathed out in words.
He had deemed himself alone, aloof from men;
But seemed had scarce his murmurous monotone
Died on his lips, he skyward gazing still,
When he was conscious of approaching feet,
Feet all at once so nigh, they in the dark
Touched him ere he could rouse himself to stand.

'Why, brother Saul! I stumble on you here,
Much as this morn you stumbled over me!'
Such, to the sleeping man, a voice seemed borne.

'Those odious false-cheery tones once more!
Shimei has watched, and, hither following me,
Lurked overhearing my soliloquy;
Then, stealthily retiring a few steps,
Comes back, as with the brisk and frank advance
Of one somewhither walking at full speed,
And stumbles against me of purpose rude!'

So Saul divined dissembling Shimei,
Who said, or to Saul, dreaming, seemed to say—
Vision as life-like as reality:
"How naturally appear our paths to cross!
I thought that I would take a casual stroll
Alone, and you the same thought had, it seems,
At the same time, directed both, odd too,
The self-same way—another proof, you see,
What kindred spirits we are!
"You must have marked
How fine the night is! What a wealth of stars!
Do you not sometimes wish, Saul, you could be
As comfortably calm at heart as stars?
How wonderfully quiet all is there,
Up in the region of the firmament!
Probably stars have nothing else to do
Than to be calm like that, and smile at us
Fretting ourselves down here with worry and work.
Worry is worse than work to wear us out.
But worst of all is having huge desires
That nothing in the world can satisfy.
Some men moon sighing for they know not what,
Mainly great hollow hungry mouths and maws,
Like void sea-beds; abysses of desire,
You know, that not the world itself could fill.
Better close up your heart than stretch it wide
And never get enough to make it full.
Adjust yourself, say I, to circumstance,
Hard work adjusting circumstance to you!
There's nothing better than to go right on
Doing the obvious duty next to hand,
And let the stars pursue their peaceful way,
As hindered not, so envied not, by you.
The sky is calm, no doubt—the upper sky—
But happens we do not live in the sky,
But on the earth, a very different place,
And man's work we, not star's work, have to do;
So let us be about it while we may.

"For instance now, to bring the matter home
(I trust I shall not seem officious, Saul,
I really must make one suggestion more),
Your pristine prestige has been much impaired
Through slips and ill-successes on your part.
No mean advantage to a man, repute
For what the godless Romans call 'good luck,'
Piously we, 'the favor of the Lord';
This is forsaking you, I grieve to find,
On all sides round, wherever I inquire.
Up, and recover it with one bold push,
Push that dares hazard all upon a cast.
You know twelve men there are in special sort
Dubbed the 'apostles' of the Nazarene,
Who play a part assigned as witnesses
To testify that Jesus rose again,
After his crucifixion, from the dead.
These fellows boldly in Jerusalem
Stay, while the rest run scattering far and wide.
Some kind of superstitious charm or awe
Surrounds them—that is, in their own conceit
And fond illusion of impunity.
Boldly arrest them, Saul, and spoil the spell."

Thus far, as oft in dreams will chance, Saul lay
And helpless heard what irked him sore to hear;
But now, the loathing irrepressible
Excited by such hateful speech, roused him
To spurning that asunder broke the bonds,
The nightmare bonds, of sleep. He, full awake,
Groped with his hands about, dreading to feel
Shimei indeed couched nigh, as he had dreamed,
Breathing into his ear. No Shimei there!
He sprang upon his feet, and in the light
Of the waned moon, now risen, still large and fair,
Looked round and round—to find himself alone.

"A dream, then," Saul said, "only a hideous dream!
Thank God! How horribly real it seemed! How like
Must I have grown to him, to have had his thoughts!
What demon's doom only to have such thoughts!
Perhaps a demon whispered these now to me!
I could even pity Shimei, to be haunt
And harbor of his ceaseless evil thoughts—
Could pity, save that I detest too much.
I cannot be like him and loathe him so;
Or does he haply also loathe himself?
Then were I like, for sure I loathe myself!
What travesty it was of those my thoughts!
And not ignoble thoughts, though vain, they were.
The mad pranks that our dreaming brains will play!"

So musing, there Saul, on the mountain's brow,
Statue-like stood some moments in suspense;
Then slow descending to his house repaired.
A deep, deep draught of pure oblivion
In sleep drowned him until the morrow noon.

Prayer then, and then fast broken, and calmly Saul
The ill dream of his yesternight revolved.
What better project for fresh act than that
Which, gladly now he pondered, Shimei
Did not propose, but only Shimei's
False lively mimic counterfeit in sleep?
Yea, he would next, with prompt but circumspect
Audacity, the audacious head and front
Smite of this growing mischief, in those men
Styled the apostles of the Nazarene.

Saul knew within his heart that secretly
He dreaded this adventure; therefore he,
With will sardonically set, moved on
To undertake it. Twenty men of tried
True mettle, men with muscle iron-firm,
And mind seasoned, through many hazards run,
And long wont of impunity, to scorn
All danger—such a score of men chose Saul,
And, from them veiling yet his purpose, took,
With indirection intricate, his way
Toward where, as he, by diligent quest, had learned,
The twelve apostles used each day to meet
In secret from their prowling enemies;
But to the common people, loving them
For manifold miracles of beneficence,
Their secret meeting-place was not unknown.

As, gradually, Saul with his retinue
Drew near the spot, so large a following
Of arméd men, led by a chief whose fame
Was rife now through Jerusalem for deeds
And purposes of uttermost revenge
Against the Galilæan heresy,
Gathered about their course a growing crowd,
Who, urged by various thought and feeling, watched
What might that minatory march intend.
Reached thus at length the place, Saul stays his steps,
And, turning to his men in halt to hear,
Speaks, with that dense clear voice which tense will breeds:
"Here hide the twelve arch-heretics of all.
Ye come to take them hence bond prisoners,
For lodgment in a hold whence no escape,
That they may cease sedition to foment.
Duly the fathers of the Sanhedrim,
Wise warders of our Hebrew commonwealth,
Will thence adjudge them to their doom of death.
No waste of words in parley now, leave asked,
Terms offered, naught of that, no paltering pause,
Instantly, stroke on stroke, down with the door!"

But pause they did, those picked, use-hardened men;
They stood as struck with palsy or with fear.
"Traitors be ye, or cravens, which?" cried Saul—
Amazement, indignation, ire, disdain,
Effacing exhortation in his tone.
Then, mastering himself, less fiercely he
Chode them: "Whence and whereto is this? Mean ye,
Ye surely mean not, mutiny? Rouse, then,
With will; obey, your loyalty retrieve!"

But still they hung there moveless, until one,
Seeming the spokesman of his fellows, said:
"No mutineers, no traitors, cravens none,
Are we. But look around, and judge what means
This concourse of beholders"—"'Look around'?
Around look?" thundered Saul. "Nay, straight-on looks,
These sole, become stout hearts, staunch wills. 'Around'
Cease looking ye, and all right forward stare
To where yon door fronts you and you affronts.
Batter it down, and, staring forward, on!"

The vehement, vindictive, dense onslaught
Of that impatient, proud, imperious will
Smote like the missile of a catapult
Against the clamped immovable dead wall
Of fixed inert resistance to Saul's wish,
Which strangely, as one man, those men opposed.
That impact did not shake that stubborn strength,
Nor shiver back in staggering recoil—
Absorbed, annulled, annihilated, waste!

One infinitesimal instant, Saul a blind
Mad impulse felt—which, that same instant, he
Quenched in a simultaneous saner thought—
To rush single upon the door, with blank
Ridiculous demonstration of balked will
Indignant. "Me, then, seize, your chief contemned,"
Said Saul, "contemned, since not obeyed, and me
Deliver captive to the Sanhedrim,
Denounced unworthy of your trust, and theirs!"

As, saying this, around he glanced, he saw,
With unintending eyes, a spectacle
Which well had awed him, but that he was Saul.
The frequence of spectators serried nigh
Had armed themselves with stones, and imminent stood,
A thunder-cloud of menace on each brow,
Ready those bolts of vengeance to let fly,
In hail-storm that no mortal might withstand,
At whoso dared defy their angry mood;
Portent so dire Saul could not but peruse.

"It was but question which should overawe,
Ye, or this rabble of sedition here,
And ye have solved it like the cowards ye are!"
So, with his passion humored to its height,
And javelin looks shot at his men in shower,
Cried Saul; "I had deemed otherwise of you.
And yet, even yet, once wake the dormant man
Within you, and, from hands through fear relaxed,
Harmless will drop those miscreant stones which now,
With your poltroonery, ye invoke to fall
In well-deservéd doom upon your heads!"

Upbraided thus, they, by that spokesman, said:
"Stoning may lightly be despised by men
Like us, whose trade it is at need to die;
And bloody death were meet for men of blood.
But we are of the people, as are these
Whom here thou seest around us, stone in hand;
And we, the people, love for cause those men,
Our benefactors, whom thou seekest to slay—
Wherefore, we know not, save perhaps it be
Some ill persuasion thine that slanders them
As enemies of our race, seditious men,
Conspiring to do evil and not good.
But, if we should as lief, as we should loth,
Offer them violence, and if we could,
As we could not, hope then to escape the stones
Here seen uneasy in so many hands
At only brandished threat of harm to them,
Know, there is more than mail enduing these
Inviolate against what human touch
Might mean them wrong. Something intangible,
Invisible, inaudible, unknown,
A might as irresistible as strange,
Not only arms them proof against assault,
But issues from them in dread strokes of doom,
Silent like lightning, and like lightning swift,
And instantaneous deadly more than that.
What prison-walls can prisoners hold these men?
Hast thou not heard how Ananias fell,
Sapphira too, his wife, dead at their feet,
Fell at their feet stone-dead, when they but charged
A lie unto the Spirit of the Lord
On those twain twinned in judgment as in crime?
A dreadful visitation, as from God;
But, whencesoever issuing, dreadful yet!
No panoply have we against such stroke,
Against the authors of such stroke, no power.
Slay us, or get us slain, we can but die;
But die like Ananias will we not!"

Saul listened with illimitable scorn;
And scorn incensed his rage thus crossed to be,
Hopelessly crossed, by crass perversity.
In rage and scorn, he scourged those men with words:
"There is no reasoning with minds like you!—
Too ignorant to guess how ignorant
Ye are, and self-conceited in degree
To match. Such ignorance, with self-conceit
Such, renders blind indeed. What boots it I
Should tell you superstition clouds your brain?
Your superstition would not let you hear.
Your very senses, given by God to be
The avenues of knowledge to your mind,
Satan has clogged to truth, and made of them
But open thoroughfares for lies from him
To enter by and capture you his own.
Mere Satan's lies those tales are that ye tell,
Of prison-doors thrown wide mysteriously
To let these men go free, and of deaths dealt
By magic sentence weaponless from them—
Mere Satan's lies those tales, or, were they true,
Yet tokens only of Satanic power
And craft permitted to disport them here
For their destruction who to be destroyed
Prove themselves greedy by such act as yours.
Dupes of the devil, go, I pity you!
This is your weakness, not your villainy.
I thought to make you helpers in my strife
To save the souls of others, but your souls
Themselves need saving first and most of all—
If souls like yours of saving worthy be,
Or capable! Some different make of men
From you, seems I must seek, to serve my need.
Yet you I thank at least for this, that ye
By your behavior show me what a sore,
How seated, and how wide, into the heart
Eats of my nation! Lo, I take the cup,
The full, the overflowing cup of shame
Which ye this day wring out for me, that cup
Take I with thanks from you, and to the dregs
Drain it, in pledge, in pledge and sacrament,
That I hereafter give myself more whole,
More absolute, more consecrate, to one,
One only, pure endeavor and desire,
The utter rooting out—at cost how dear,
No reckoning, mine or other's, toil, and tears,
And blood—wherever Jewish name be found,
Of this foul creeping rot and leprosy,
This blight, this blast, this mildew, on our fame!"

Saul, in the light of luminous wrath, foresaw
Nigh, and saluted, that career, which thence,
After Judæan cities overrun
With havoc at his hand to Jesus' name,
Will bear him ravening on Damascus road!

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