Sobered by triumph, and not triumphing,
Made pensive rather, Stephen went away.
Forth from the hour when Shimei, so dismissed,
Shrank out of presence at Antonia
Collapsed in spirit as in mien and port,
He to the end was seen an altered man.
Dejected, absent, like a criminal
Convicted of his crime, sentenced to die,
Though day of death unfixed, imprisoned not,
Nay, moving, as if free, about the world,
To view not different from his fellow-men,
Yet with a sense forever haunting him
Of doom uncertainly suspended still
Above him, that at any moment might
In avalanche descend upon his head—
So he lived joyless, the elastic spring
Broken that buoyed him to his wickedness.
But loth he had to Cæsarea gone,
Where, with wry looks and deprecation vain,
He gave the letter to the governor;
Had he, to ease his case, dared fail the trust,
The failure would have failed his case to ease,
Nay, rather, would have harder made his case,
Since Stephen could report what he did not,
And could besides report his negligence.
But Shimei dared not fail; he knew offence,
Added, of disobedience, would but draw
Speedier the dreaded danger ruining down.
Joy is to some a spring of energy,
Which failing, all their force for action fails—
They having in themselves no virtue proof
Against the palsying touch ill fortune brings;
Of such was Shimei. In his broken state,
His measures he took feebly, without hope.
The wish—which with the expectation joined
Would have made hope—yea, even the very wish,
That life and strength of hope, was well-nigh dead
In him; for he no longer now desired
The thing he wrought for still, under constraint
Of habit, and that strange necessity
Which sense of many eyes upon him fixed
To watch him working the familiar wont
Of Shimei, bred within this wretched man,
Forcing him like a fate.
Fit tool he found
In one Tertullus—hireling Roman tongue,
Or function mere, not organ—who, for price,
Spoke customary things accusing Paul
To Felix, for the Jews; these joined their voice
In sanction of the truth of what he said.
But Paul denying their base charges all,
Denying and defying to the proof,
The governor postponed them for a time.
Paul he remanded into custody,
But bade with courteous ways distinguish him;
Whereof the secret cause was, not a sense
In Felix of the righteousness of Paul,
With therefore sweet magnanimous desire
To grace him what in loyalty he could—
Of no such height was Felix capable—
The cause none other was than Shimei;
Who Paul however served not, but himself.
For Shimei dreaded what he seemed to seek,
The sentence "Guilty," at the judgment-bar
Of Felix on this prisoner Paul pronounced;
Dreaded it, lest appeal therefrom be claimed
By Paul to the imperial ear at Rome.
He himself, Shimei, then might be compelled
To go likewise the same unwelcome way,
Though witness and accuser only named,
Yet labelled target for suspicious eyes,
Where eyes suspicious oft portended doom.
So he to Felix—less with words than signs,
Mysterious looks and reticences deep,
As of a man who could, if but he would,
And were it wise, tell much that, left untold,
Might well be guessed from things kept back, yet thus,
And thus, and thus (in Shimei's pantomime)
Winked with the eye and with the shoulder shrugged—
Hint signalled that there hid a gold mine here,
For who, with power like his, conjoined the skill
To make it yield its treasure to demand;
This Paul had wealthy friends who gladly would
Buy at large price indulgences for him.
Let Felix hold out hopes, deferring still,
Suffer his friends to come and visit Paul,
Give hearings to his case, but naught decide,
Weary him out, and them, with long delays—
Till a realm's ransom woo his clutch at last.
Now Shimei thus consummately contrived;
For Felix was a mercenary soul,
Who governed in the spirit of a slave.
He, therefore, doubting not that Shimei
(Confessed the player of a double part,
Pander to him, accuser for the Jews)
Was all the rascal that the chiliarch guessed,
Yet deemed he saw his profit in the man.
He could use Shimei to his own behoof,
In winning what he coveted from Paul;
Meantime remitting not his hold on him
For final expiation of his crimes.
The two, well fitted to each other, thus
Played each his several sordid game with each,
And neither by the other was deceived,
Both equally incapable of trust,
As equally unworthy to be trusted—
Until, two years accomplished, Felix fell
From power at Cæsarea; when, his greed
Long disappointed of its glut of gain
From Paul, he left him there in prison. He hoped
The dreaded accusation of the Jews
For his abuse of power, surpassing bound,
Might less fierce follow him to Rome, should he,
By that injustice added, in their eyes
His thousands of injustices atone.
Moreover Felix hated Paul, as hates
The upbraided ever his upbraider, when,
The conscience yielding, yet the will withstands.
For, during the imprisonment of Paul,
And that prolonged delay of trial due
Him, this base freedman—basely raised to be
A ruler—as a pleasure to his wife,
Devised a feast of eloquence for her.
She was a Jewess, beautiful as vile,
And as in beauty brilliant, so in wit;
She would enjoy it, like a spectacle,
To sit, in emulated state, a queen
Beside her husband in his judgment-hall,
And there, at ease reclined, her lord's delight,
In her resplendent and voluptuous bloom,
Disport herself at leisure, eye and ear
Tasting their satisfaction to the full,
To see and hear her famous countryman
Expound his doctrine and defend his cause.
Not often, in his rude Judæan seat
Of government in banishment, could he
Proffer the stately partner of his throne
An equal hope of entertainment rare.
So, royal in their pomp of progress, came,
One day, the lustful Felix with his bride,
Adulterous Drusilla, guilty pair!
And, on his throne of judgment seating him,
Bade Paul before them, in his prisoner's chain,
To burn the splendors of his oratory
In pleading for the faith of Jesus Christ—
Fresh pastime to the cloyed and jaded sense
For pleasure those voluptuaries brought!
Uncalculated thrills, not of delight,
That lawless Roman ruler had purveyed
Himself, to chase each other in their chill
Procession through the currents of his blood,
And, shuddering, shoot along his nerves, and freeze
His marrow!—conscience in him her last sign
Making perhaps that day.
But will he heed?
Or will the terrors of the world to come
Vainly appal him with the eternal fear?