The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

"Hist! Haste!" So Paul to Stephen signed and said;
"Hence, and bring hither quickly bread and wine,
Wherewith to cheer Gamaliel when he wakes;
He sleeps now, weary with unwonted thought."

Shimei saw Stephen from the fort come out
And bear purveyance back of bread and wine;
So, earlier, he had seen Gamaliel pass,
Led by the hand of Stephen, through the gate,
Presumably to visit Paul within.
For he, as ever when some crime he teemed,
Uneasy till the full-accomplished birth,
Was like the hungry hunting hound denied
Access to his wished prey, known to be near—
Though thus from touch, as too from sight, withdrawn,
And only by the teaséd nostril snuffed—
Who cannot cease from patient jealous watch,
On haunches sitting, or on belly prone,
Lest somehow yet he miss his taste of blood—
So that ill spirit all day had scented Paul,
Shut up within the castle out of reach,
And sedulously studied, at remove,
Whatever might be token of attempt,
Other's or his, the morrow's doom to cheat.
The very thought, 'Should he slip through our hands!'
Was anguish, like a goad, to Shimei,
Who now was sure he had the hope divined
That Paul was harboring—an escape by night!
'Paul, in the darkness, stealing out disguised
As old Gamaliel, would, with meat and drink
Supplied him, safety seek in distant flight.'
Filled with such thought, the tireless crafty Jew,
Colluding with the sentry at the gate,
There sat him down the sentry's watch to share;
Paul should by no such stratagem avoid
The vengeance that next morrow waited him.

But Paul and Stephen, guileless, of the guile
Imputed dreamed not; they with happy thought
Contented them until Gamaliel woke.
Then when Gamaliel woke, they gave him wine,
Pure from the grape, so much as heartened him,
And bread that strengthened him, from fasting faint.
Discourse then followed, eased with many a change
From theme to theme, from mood to mood diverse,
Until the long daylight was waned away,
And twilight deepened round them talking still.

Gamaliel, in whatever various vein
Of converse with his outward mind employed,
Was ever, in his deeper inward mind,
Resistlessly drawn backward to the doubt,
The question, the perplexity, the fear,
'Saul—is he right? And is Gamaliel wrong?
And have I missed to know the Christ of God?'
He gazed abstractedly on Paul, beheld
So different; less in outer aspect changed—
Although therein, too, other—than in act,
In gesture and in attitude of soul,
The spirit and the motive of the man,
Transfigured from the pride that once was Saul.
"I do not know thee, Saul," at length he said;
"Nay, nay, not Saul—I should not call him Saul,
This is some different man from him I knew,
In other years long gone, and called him Saul!
Such difference in the same the sameness makes
Impossible. Impossible, but that
The sameness still in difference survives
Persistently. The impossible itself
I must believe—when I behold it."

"Yea,"
Paul said, "and more, the impossible become,
When God so wills it; as for me He willed!
My life these many years, my self, has been
One contradiction of the possible.
The reconcilement of all things in Christ
Is God the Blessed's purpose and decree.
For God delights in the impossible."

Gamaliel did not heed, but murmuring spoke,
In absent deep communion with himself:
"Saul, Paul, the same still, and so changed, so changed!
And cause of change none other than that stroke,
That lightning-stroke he tells of, launched on him
From out a cloudless sky at blazing noon!
Whence, and what was it, that stupendous blow!
Would He have lied Who flashed it blinding down?
Or suffered any liar to claim it his?
And the dread Voice made answer: 'It is I,
Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified.'
Lo, my whole head is sick, my whole heart faint,
Turned dizzy with the whirl of many thoughts—
Thoughts many, and too violently strange,
For a worn-weary aged mind like mine!
I feel I am too feeble to abide
Much longer all this tumult of my heart;
I shall myself cease, if it does not cease.
And peradventure cease it would, could I
Stop striving, and give up to be a child.
A child once more! Ah, that in truth were sweet,
To find some bosom like a mother's, where
I might lay down my aching head to rest,
This head, so hoar, the foolish think so wise!
Old, but not wise, not wise indeed though old;
In weakness—would it were in meekness too!—
A child, leaning, with none to lean upon—
Such is Gamaliel in his hoary age!"

Besides his words, the old man's yearning look
Bore witness to the trouble of his mind.
Paul spoke—so gently that the sense he gave
Seemed to Gamaliel almost his own thought:
"'Come unto Me,' Messiah Jesus said,
'Come unto Me,' as Who had right, said, 'ye
That labor and are heavy-laden, all,
Come unto Me and I will give you rest.
My yoke upon you take, and learn of Me;
For meek am I in heart, and lowly; so
Shall ye find rest unto your souls."

From Paul
No more; for, all as if he naught had heard,
But only was remembering what he heard,
Gamaliel went on musing audibly:
'Rest'—comfortable word! But he was young
That spake thus, young, and in the law unlearned;
And of a yoke spake he, 'My yoke,' he said.
Surely I am too old to go to school,
Too reverend-old, my neck so late to bend,
A sign to all the people—stooped to take
Meekly that youngster Galilæan's yoke!
Beware, beware! I tremble at the words
I speak. I feel the dreadful presence here,
More dreadful, of the power that shook me so,
When those apostles of the Nazarene
Stood up before our council to be judged.
If I should now, this last time, err through pride!"

The murmur of Gamaliel's musing ceased;
But ceased not the strong crying without words
In Paul's heart for his master so bestead.
The solemn silence of that prison cell,
Less broken than accented by the tread
Monotonous and measured heard without
Of the dull sentry pacing to and fro
His beat along the way before the door
More like mechanic pendulum than man;
The darkness of the place now utter, night
Full come, no lamp; the awe, the dread suspense
Unspeakable of such an issue poised,
Eternity in doubtful balance there
A-tremble on a razor-edge of time—
This even on Stephen's bright young spirit cast
As if a shadow from the world to come;
He parted with it after nevermore
The vivid certainty, that moment seized,
Of an Unseen, more real, beyond the Seen.

But presently Gamaliel yet again
Mused audibly in murmur as before:
"I fear me I shall fail, and not let go
Betimes the hold I have, the hold has me,
Say rather, this fierce hold upon myself
And mine own righteousness so dearly earned,
To take the fall proposed, the shuddering fall,
Through emptiness and that waste waiting deep
Of nothing under me, in hope to reach
At last—what rescue, or what landing-place?
Rest in the arms once pinioned to the cross!
He draws me with His heavenly-uttered 'Come'!
This is God's voice; God's voice I must obey—
Yea, Lord, thy servant heareth, and I come.
I say it, but I do it not. Too late?
What if at last I prove to hold too hard
Upon myself, and not undo my hand,
Grown stiff with holding long, until too late!
These are my last heart-beats, and with the last,
The very last, what would I do? Resist?
Resist, or yield? Oh, not resist, but yield;
Lord, help me not resist, but yield, but yield—"