A pause once more of rapt communion; then
This added in a chastened other strain:
"But we such treasure have in urns of clay
Fragile and nothing worth that all in all
The exceeding greatness of the power may be
Not of ourselves but ever only God's!
Constrained I find myself in every way,
But straitened not; perplexed, but not dismayed;
Hunted, but not forsaken; smitten down,
But not destroyed; forever bearing round
Within the body wheresoever driven
The dying of the Lord, that the Lord's life
May also in my body forth be shown.
Therefore I faint not; let my outward man
Fail, if it must, my inward man meantime
Is day by day in fadeless youth renewed.
How light affliction sits upon my heart!
It is but for a moment, and it works
The while for me an ever-growing weight
Of glory fixed forever to be mine!
I look no longer on the things about
Me, seeming to be real, since they are seen,
But far away instead, far, far away
Beyond these, at the things that are not seen.
These for a season, Rachel, the things seen!
But those, the things not seen, eternal they!
"When I saw Stephen upward into heaven
Gaze, and behold there what no eye might see,
The glory of the Ever-living God,
And Jesus standing by His Father's side;
When afterward I saw Hirani stand
Before the anger of the Sanhedrim,
His eyes not seeing what their faces looked,
His ears not hearing what the voices round
Were saying and forswearing to his harm,
But steadfastly his vision fixed afar
And all his hearkening bent for sounds unheard,
Sights, sounds, sent couriers from the world to come,
The real world, the eternal, and the blest—
How little knew I then what now I know!
O Rachel, why was I not then disturbed
With doubts and fears, and guesses of the true?
The darkness of that hour before the dawn!
The brightness of this full-accomplished day!
The glory of that other day that waits!
The Jacob's ladder and the shining rounds!
The moving pomps of angels up and down
Ascending and descending the degrees
Betwixt the heights of heavenly and my feet!
"Now unto Him that in such darkness died,
But rose amid such brightness from the tomb
And reascended where He was before
To glory inaccessible with God,
And there expects until He thither bring
Us also both to witness and to share
His exaltation to the almighty throne—
To our Lord Christ, Redeemer by His blood,
Worthy, and only worthy, to receive
Ascription without measure of men's praise,
Be honor, worship, thanks, obedience, paid,
And love, even love like His, forevermore!"
Rachel had barely to her brother's words
Breathed fervently her low amen, when he,
The passion of doxology unspent
Yet quivering in his tones, went on and said:
"But, Rachel, all amid this strain of joy
Exulting like a fountain in my heart—
Unspeakable and full of glory indeed,
As Peter matched it with his mighty phrase!—
Yea, in it, as if of it and the same,
I feel a sense of pathos and of pain
And hint of earthly with the heavenly mixed.
I cannot but of Shimei think, and grieve—
The grief indeed a paradox of joy,
Such pity and such anguish of desire
To help and save! Can we not succor him?
Can we not have him forth of his duress
In dungeon into this fair light of day?
I feel it must be possible. Pray thou,
And I will pray, and haply God may touch
The heart of Julius to such act of grace
That at our suit and intercession he
Will bid the wretched bondman up again
Out of the noisome darkness where he pines,
If to full freedom not, at least to breathe
The freshness of the unpolluted air
And feel the force of the reviving sun.
Sick he may be, in prison is, we know,
And neighbor let us count him, taught of Christ
To hold for neighbor any who in need
Is nigh enough to us for us to help.
Sick and in prison Jesus we might find
In Shimei, if for Jesus' sake we go
And carry him the solaces of love!"
"But he, will he receive what we should bring?"
Said Rachel; "would not bitter-making thought
Welling up in him like a secret spring
Of brackish issue gushing from beneath
A crystal runlet pure as Siloa's brook,
Turn for him all our sweetness into gall?"
"Perhaps, perhaps," said Paul; "we cannot know.
That were for thee and me defeat indeed—
To be of evil overcome! But, nay,
Nay, Rachel, let us hope, and overcome
Evil with good. What is impossible?
Is this, even this, impossible—through Christ?
Love, if love perfect be, hopeth all things.
There is in love, as John delights to say,
No fear; for perfect love casteth out fear.
Perfect our love, be faithless outcast fear
No counsellor of ours; but hope instead
Far-seeing, with her forward-looking eyes
Reflecting hither light from that beyond.
Hope maketh not ashamed, because the love
Of God is poured forth in our hearts a stream,
An overflowing, like the river of God,
Fed from the fulness of the Holy Ghost!
O, how omnipotent I feel in him!
But, behold, Julius! Let me speak straightway!"
"O thou, my keeper"—so to Julius Paul—
"Full courteous to thy prisoner often proved,
Nay, more than courteous, kind—beseech thee now
Beyond thy wont be courteously kind!"
"What wilt thou, then?" said Julius. "Grant it me,"
Paul answered, "to reprieve, from chains, I ask not,
But from his dungeon doom, to see the sun
And breathe this vital air, the wretched man
Whom, partly for my sake perhaps, thou keepest
Immured in dismal dark duress below!"
"Strange being thou!" said Julius answering Paul,
Yet answering not, with wonder overpowered.
"That wretch, that miscreant, craven, liar, proved
Corrupter of the faith of men through bribe—
Nay, but assassin, only that he failed,
Assassin disappointed in attempt—
On whose life but thine own?—such man accurst
Do I now hear thee interceding for,
Thee, prisoner thyself, and that—unless
The story of his plot and traitorhood
And band of forty sworn conspirators
Against thee at Jerusalem, have been
Falsely told me—aye, that solely through him!
I wonder at thee! Art thou mad? The day
Thy countryman confronted by thee quailed,
Convicted of his dastard perjury
Which aimed to make thee murderer of him—
Then, Paul, I thought thee sane enough, as thou
With words launched like the thunderbolts of Jove
Didst rive him to his rotten innermost!
Yet then, even then, relenting strangely, thou
Didst melt the hardness that became thee so—
Making thee almost Roman, as I thought—
Melt it into a softness like a woman's.
And now again from thee this wanton whim
And suit of pity for that damnable!
I cannot make thee out—unless it be
Thou art moonstruck, and maudlin-mindedness
At times seize thee betraying thy manhood thus!"
Paul did not answer the centurion's words
With words again; instead—with look serene,
Ascendant, irresistible—received,
Absorbed, and overbore that other's look
(Which, after the words spoken, rested on
Paul's face in pity that was almost scorn)
Quenching it as a shield a fiery dart;
Till Julius, fain to yield yet somewhat save
His pride in yielding, turned from Paul and said
To Rachel, as in condescension dashed
With banter: "Let thy sister if she will
Go carry Shimei tidings of reprieve;
A sister to a brother's murderer go
And take him token of her love—and his!"
A little softening, as he spoke, from sneer,
At the sheer aspect of her loveliness,
An aspect not of weakness, but wherein
There mingled, with the lovely woman's charm,
Something august of saintly matronhood,
Remote from any hint of what could seem
Defect of sane and saving self-control—
Thus wrought upon a little while he spoke,
Julius to Rachel turning spoke such words.
"All thanks," she gently said, "thou art most kind.
It shall be as thou sayest, for I will go."
She turned, but hung in action, as through doubt;
With artless art of hesitation sweet
Beyond persuasion eloquent, she said:
"Yea, thou art good, and gladly will I go,
But I—I am a woman—were it meet?—
If thou declarest it meet, then it shall be,
And thither will I venture down alone;
For God will round me globe an angel guard
To treasure me from peril and from soil."