The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

Of these was martyr Stephen's widow, Ruth,
A stately lady, with the matron's crown
Of glory in her wealth of silver hair,
And with the invisible pure aureole
Of living saintship radiant round her brow.
With her, a daughter, left to Ruth alone
Among her children—wedded all beside.
Her youngest-born, and fairest, was this one,
Eunicé named; a gift from God to Ruth
After her husband's martyrdom bestowed.
Euníce bore her father's image, lined
Softer with girlhood and with yielding youth,
Both in her features and her character.
The light that in her lovely countenance
Shone lovelier, was not playful, did not flash,
But sat there tempered to an equal beam,
Selené-like, that one might look upon,
From far or near, dwelling however long,
With sense of rest and healing to the eye;
You seemed to gaze upon the evening star
In sole possession of a twilight sky.
It was as if the father's zeal intense—
Which, kindling on his way to martyrdom,
Shone into brightness dazzling like the sun—
Descended to the daughter, were suffused
So, and so qualified, with woman's love,
That it undazzling like the moon became.
Eunicé, such in queenly womanhood,
Already to young Stephen was betrothed;
They waited only till the years should bring
Full ripeness, with meet circumstance, to wed.

Mary of Magdala kinswoman was
To Ruth. She, long afflicted, from before
Her marriageable season, with the haunt
In her of evil spirits vagabond
From the abyss, had, then to woman grown,
Met Jesus in His rounds of doing good
And been by Him delivered from her woe.
Seven demons, at His word, went forth from her,
Foul inmates of a mansion passing fair.
Mary to her Divine Deliverer gave
Her life thenceforth one long oblation up.
With other women, like herself in love
Of Him, she followed that Immanuel
Whithersoever He went about the world,
And of her treasure lavished on His need.
She stood bewailing when they crucified
Her Lord, and, after, at His sepulcher
The earliest, ere the breaking of the morn,
Saw two fair-shining angels clothed in white,
One at the head, the other at the feet,
Sit where the body of the Lord had lain.
These talked with Mary, who then turning saw,
But knew not, Jesus, face to face with her.
But Jesus to the weeping woman said:
"Mary!" and, in the hearing of her name,
She forthwith knew the voice that uttered it.
In her delight of love, she would have touched
His person, to assure still more her mind,
Save that again that voice, forestalling, gave
Enough assurance for such faith as hers.
Mary refrained her hand, but full well knew
No fleeting phantom, no dissolving show,
No spirit only, angel of the dead,
Stood there before her in the form of Him;
But her Lord Christ Himself, His flesh and blood.

This Mary Magdalené, in such wise
First to such joy delivered from such woe,
Then witness of so much theophany,
Thenceforward lived, unwedded to the end,
A life of watching for her Lord's return,
True to His promise, in the clouds of heaven;
Not idle watching, watching unto prayer
And unto almsdeeds to His glory done.
In the due sequel of the days, she came,
Bidden by her kinswoman Ruth, to share
Her widow's home with her and help her peace.
Thus then, the much-experienced Mary, meek
With wisdom and with holy meekness wise
(Her sorrow all to cheerful patience turned)
Unnoticed, not unfelt, as light, as strength
Unconscious, from the Source of strength, of light
Daily renewed, for guidance and support
To all within her happy neighborhood—
She also, Mary Magdalené, came
To Cæsarea, yoked in fellowship
With Ruth and Rachel, ministrant to Paul.

These all, with others, still intent to ease,
If but by sharing, what to Paul befell,
Were minded to go with him even to Rome—
When Festus, following Felix dispossessed,
Sent Paul away to Cæsar's judgment-seat,
Fulfilling so the wretched Shimei's fear.
For—Festus asking Paul (accused afresh
Before him from Jerusalem by Jews
Afresh to hope reviving with the change
From Felix to a different rulership):
"Wilt thou hence go unto Jerusalem,
And there by thine own countrymen be judged?"—
The wary wise apostle, well forewarned
Touching the deadly ambush, to waylay
Him in the journey thither, set once more
By Shimei, desperate and forlorn, had said:
"I am a prisoner at the judgment-bar
Of Cæsar; to my countrymen have I
No wrong done, as thou knowest; if any crime
Be mine, if I have perpetrated deed
Worthy of death, I do not shun to die.
But if of such act I be innocent,
Then no man may to them deliver me.
Roman am I, to Cæsar I appeal."
That answer was as word omnipotent,
To be unsaid, gainsaid, resisted, never;
And Festus was its servant and its thrall.

There sailed a ship of Adramyttium
(In Mysia of the Asian Province west,
From Lesbos in a deep recess withdrawn
Of bay in the Ægean, neighboring Troy)
Which touched at Cæsarea in its course
Coastwise, now northing on the Syrian shore.
Festus on board this vessel quartered Paul,
With soldiers to convoy him safe to Rome;
A maniple, by a centurion
Commanded, Julius named, a Roman he
Worthy of the imperial name he bore.
For he of clement grace was capable,
And of sagacity to know a man,
Though of despiséd race and charged with crime,
And, knowing, yield to him his manhood's claim.
Julius the profit of his virtue reaped;
He, in the issue of that voyage, will
Through favoring Paul save his own soul alive.

Those kin and lovers of the prisoner, who
Had for his name to Cæsarea come,
Would not forsake him sailing thence away;
They all, in one accord of fellowship,
Willed to sail with him on his way to Rome.
Besides these, there was Luke, a loyal soul,
Well learnéd in the lore of medicine,
Who loved Paul, and with joy his right hand lent,
Joining thereto the service of his eyes,
To fix for the apostle, at his need,
In written record, his thick-coming thoughts—
Ease for those weary organs overworn
With labors and with watchings; haply, too,
Touched with effect from that excess of light!
Historian of the voyage likewise Luke,
As, guided by the heavenly-guided Paul,
Who thus redeemed long prison hours else waste,
Historian of the life of Christ the Lord.
So many, with a man from Macedon,
A faithful, Aristarchus named, made up
The little company who loving hearts
Linked, shield to shield, in phalanx fencing Paul.
If they could serve him little on the sea,
At least they could be with him there; and then,
Should long delays of law, or of caprice,
Hold him still bound in Rome, they would be nigh
To bring him, daily, comfort of their love.
So, doubting not, not fearing, all for love,
These changed their fixéd gear for portable,
And on that ship of Adramyttium,
Facing whatever fortune unforeseen,
Cheerfully sailed—to tempest and to wreck!

Scarce well bestowed within that Asian bark,
Riding at anchor in her rock-fenced haven,
Those Christian pilgrims felt unwonted stir
Rouse round them on the crowded deck, with surge
On surge of movement, of expectancy,
As when a rising surf beats the sea-beach;
While, huddling here, here parting, all made way
To let who seemed high passengers of state
Enter with gorgeous pomp and pageantry,
Forerun and followed by a various train.
Felix it was, in sumptuous litter borne,
Drusilla with him, looking still the queen:
From power they fallen, were fallen not from pride.
With them, besides their troop of servitors,
Came other two, strange contrasts: Simon one,
The conjurer, fast to their joint fortune bound,
Beginning to be gray with rime of age,
As sinister grown in look through habit of guile;
A little lad tripped lightly by the side
Of Simon (who his evil genius looked)
Leading him by the hand upon the ship.
This little lad was little Felix, son
Of Felix and Drusilla, and dear to them,
Felix Agrippa the lad's double name.
Felix went summoned from his province back
To give at Rome account of his misrule.
Behind the sorcerer, following in that train,
Went last, as one who unattached would seem,
Shimei, compelled, though prisoner not; he strove
To carry lightly a too heavy heart.
Felix so much from Festus had obtained,
That Shimei should go forward with himself
As witness and accuser both to Paul;
Yet sinister suspicion shadowing him,
With information laid against, the while,
As the ringleader in a plot of crime.
The unhappy legate would at least detach
Thus from his own leagued Jewish foes, the Jew,
The one Jew, who, best knowing and hating him,
With the least scruple the most genius joined
To crowd him falling, to the farthest fall.

Fairly the lading and unlading done,
And all things ready, the good ship puts forth.
The oarsmen sat in triple ranks that rose
Tier above tier along the vessel's side;
With cheer of voice that timed their rhythmic stroke,
They, all together, many-handed, bent
Over the supple oars, well-hung arow,
And beat the waters into yeast and foam.
The wieldy trireme answered to their will,
And, past the towers and domes of Cæsarea,
Along a windless way under the lee
Of sea-walls fending from the bluff southwest,
Pushed to the north beyond the harbor-mouth.
Here the wind took her, freshening from behind,
And, sail all set, they rested from the oar.
Softly and swiftly, with such favoring gale,
They prosper, and, along the storied coast
Close cruising, soon discern the headland height,
Mount Carmel, with his excellency crowned
Of forest, and wide overlooking east
The plain outrolled of great Esdraelon
Washing with waves of green the mountain's feet—
Mountain whereon, in single-handed proof,
Elijah those four hundred priests of Baal
Gave to contempt; and, whence descending, he,
Red with indignant wrath for his Lord God,
By the brook Kishon slew them to His name.
This Paul remembered, as he passed; and deemed
He saw, hallowing the hills of Nazareth,
A halo from the childhood of the Lord.
From horn to horn across a crescent bay,
Embosomed by its arc of shore that curved
From Carmel round to Ptolemais north,
Faring, they could, well inland gazing, catch
A glimpse that vanished of the shapely cone
Of Tabor soaring in his Syrian blue.
Still onward, they next day the ancient seat
Of famous Sidon in Phœnicia reached—
Long ruined now, with her twin city Tyre;
Then, paired with her as mistress of the main,
Sidon sat leaning on her promontory,
Diffused along its northward-sliding slopes,
Like a luxurious queen on her divan.
Her sailors drove her keels to every haven,
And fetched her home the spoil of every clime.
To Farthest Thulé was the ocean wave
White with her sails or spumy to her oars.

Felix's hope of splendid bribe from Paul
Was brighter, that, of those who brought him cheer
In prison, some from wealthy Sidon came.
Here the ship touching, Julius, of his grace,
Granted to Paul the freedom of the shore.
With grateful gladness there, Sidonian friends,
Women and men, with children, welcome him.
Full in mid-winter, lo, a moment's spring!
So did a sudden-blossoming scene of home
Smile briefly bright about this homeless man,
This prisoner of the Lord—for the Lord's sake,
And for his own sake, dear—most human heart!
In whom his office of apostle wrought
To heighten, not to hurt, the faculty,
As it left whole the lovely need, of love.
He went thence clothed upon the more with sense
Of love his from so many, like a shield
Barring his heart from harm; and in his heart
Love buoyant more to bear what harm must fall.

From Sidon sailing, they, still northward driven
By wind that would not let them as they wished
Southwestward to the south of Cyprus isle
Win with right way the Mysian port, their aim—
So hindered, those Greek seamen warp their wake
With zigzag steering over whitening waves,
Until they feel that current of the sea,
Northwestward with perpetual ocean-stream
Washing the Cyprian shore to easternmost,
Thence veering toward the mainland, and along
The Asian border drawing to the west.
There, on such river in the ocean borne
Whither they will against a wind adverse,
They, wise with much experience of the sea,
Yet in the lee of neighboring Cyprus seek
A pathway sheltered from that roughening wind.
So, forward fairly, the Cilician sea
They traverse, with the mountains on their left,
Sheer through the length of sunny Cyprus drawn,
Building a sea-wall, to break off the wind.
Over against, to be descried, though far—
Well by two hearts on board that vessel felt,
Paul and his sister Rachel—to the north,
Lay the long reach of the Cilician shore.
Those (thither strained their homeward-yearning eyes)
There, tearful, saw remembered Taurus tower;
Whence river Cydnus rushing snow-cold down,
Wild from his mountain to the stretched-out plain,
Tames him his torrent to a pace more even;
And yields to be a navigable stream
For Tarsus, cleft two-fold, upon his banks,
A seaboard city inland from the sea.