His Lady of the Sonnets

by Robert Winkworth Norwood

They say the Hebrew burning in my blood
Closed all life's doors, save one, upon the world;
That I, the Pharisee of Pharisees,
Contemned the beauty and the song of Greece!
How little do they know, my Timothy,
My dear disciple, and my bosom friend,
Heart, soul, feet, hands, eyes, ears, and lips of Paul,
How little do they know!
To-morrow morn
Without the city wall I shall kneel down
Before the Roman sword and die!

O Death,
Where is thy sting? O Grave....
The lad still sings!
Would thou could hear his song: Anacreon?
Nay; Sappho! He? Athenian, I think.
'Tis such a voice as that which Eunice heard—
Son of the Faith once and for all delivered—
Oft in the streets of Lystra's eventide,
Telling of Timothy returning home,
Or ever thou didst follow Christ and Paul.
Why doth he sing, and hale me back to life
Who on the morn must die? And Sappho's song!
Flee from this wicked world ordained to death!
The wrath of God is kindled in the sky,
And Babylon shall be consumed in smoke!

How all the gold has gone from out the west:
'Tis crimson now, and on the Forum falls
A menace as of blood!
O Babylon,
The cup of thine iniquity is full,
And runneth over even to the ground!

Still doth he sing; and always Sappho's song!
O Greece, the tongue of Homer and of Paul
Is in that song! Behold, the sound thereof
Goes forth unto the ends of all the world;
And neither speech nor language shall prevail
Upon its magic and its mastery!

How little do they know, son Timothy,
Of Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ.
A Pharisee? Yea, straitest of that sect.
Learned in the law? Aye, from Gamaliel.
And persecutor of the Church of God?
Saul who consented unto Stephen's death!
Ah, woe is me! Yet little do they know,
Who know not this: the law of sin and death
Is done away in Christ, by Whom all things
Are sanctified; and neither Jew nor Greek,
And neither bond nor free, exist in Him
Who is the First Begotten Son of God,
The Keystone of life's slow-ascending arch,
And Who completeth all things in Himself.

Nathless, I found this truth not easily:
In those far boyhood days beside the Cydnus,
Watching the sailors and the ships, I felt
Shame of my passion for the many tones
And tinctures of the coloured sails and prows,
Shame at the tumult in my heart at songs
Sung by the boatmen; for the law is hard,
And presseth with a heavy hand upon
Youth and the innocent delights of youth.

Young Rabbi Saul the Thunderer, and Saul
Consenting unto Stephen's death, are dead;
Slain by the piercing of the Cross of Christ!
Christ of the lilies—He Who loved the fields,
And heard the children in the market place
Complaining at the unresponsive feet,
And ears deaf to their piping and sweet song.

Doth He know my lad singing in the street—
My young Athenian, whose voice for Paul
Breathes Ave atque Vale on the world?

Christ is not quickly learned; and gradual
Is the progression of a soul to Him.
Hard strove I through the barriers of thought,
And one by one dissolved the old ideas
That misted o'er the mountains of desire,
Before I found that all things beautiful,
Like lilies of the open field, are spread
Beneath the benediction of His love.

Write this again: There is no bond nor free!
This is the Faith; and this is Jesus Christ,
The Saviour of the world!
Think what it means,
O Timothy, this Faith thou hast received
To give and guard at Ephesus. Let fall
Distinctions from henceforth, and keep in one
The diverse aspirations of mankind.
Jerusalem and Alexandria,
Rome, Athens, Corinth and Iconium,
Moses and Socrates, Plato and Paul,
Isaiah, Homer, and Euripides,
Bezaleel and thine own Phidias,
David and Sappho—all are in His heart!