The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

The island of their refuge and escape
Was Melita: the Melitans were kind,
And though they spoke a tongue not understood
By Hebrew, Greek, or Roman stranded there,
And bore the name 'barbarian' from the Greek,
Yet were they alien not; in deeds they used
A universal language of the heart.
Kindling a fire, most grateful—for the rain
Fell drenching and the weather was windy cold—
Those shipwrecked strangers all they entertained.

Now so it happened that to Paul, he too
Ranging to gather fuel where he could
And fetching soon a fagot to the fire,
Sudden there sprang a viper from the heat,
Warmed from his winter dormancy to life,
And angry fastened hanging on his hand.
The islanders beholding doubted not
But here some murderer, saved in vain from death
By shipwreck, now was suffering vengeance due.
Paul lightly shook the deadly reptile off
Into the flames and felt no harm. But they,
The islanders, kept jealous watch to see
The dooméd victim of those fatal fangs
Swell with the venom in his veins, or drop
Haply at once a corpse upon the ground.
After long disappointed watch, no sign
Of hurt perceived in Paul, they changed their mind
And said among themselves, "He is a god."

The chief man of the island, Publius,
Houses and lands possessing in those parts,
Gave Paul and his companions welcoming cheer
In three days' courteous hospitality—
Not unrequited; for the father lay
Wasting with fever and worse malady
In the son's house; but Paul went in to him
And prayed and laid his hands on him and he
Was healed. Then others also of the sick
Among the Melitans came and were healed.
So Paul had honors from them thrust on him;
These he divided with a liberal hand
To all, and when at last they left the isle
They went thence laden with a plenteous store
Bestowed of what they needed on their way.
But all the winter long they tarried there,
Waiting for spring to open up the sea;
And many an hour was theirs for various talk,
They fenced in sunny places from the wind
Or grouped about their outdoor fires for cheer.

The Indian Krishna, uncomplaining, bland,
With that quick quiet eye which naught escaped
And that deep-studying mind which rested never,
Had slowly by degrees, considering all
That Paul wrought or was wrought through Paul, been won—
Against a passive incredulity
Inert but stubborn and resistant still,
The instinct and the habit of his mind—
To judge that Jewish prisoner otherwise
Than when he hearing Paul give his advice
Unasked about the conduct of the voyage
Had fixed on him the blame of meddlesome.
He owned an awe of Paul's authority
Exerted for the rescue of the lives
Of those that sailed with him; he shared the power
Of hope and courage that went forth from Paul,
His words, his deeds, and, more than either, himself.
He did not quite escape some sense, inspired
By Paul's thanksgiving when he broke the bread,
Of other presence than Paul's own in Paul
That lifted him to higher than himself.
When he saw Paul from his uninjured hand
Shake that fell viper off into the fire,
He half-confusedly thought: 'That seems not strange;
Our Indian serpent-charmers do as much.'
But when those gifts of healing flowed from Paul,
Not singly, but in troops of miracle
Sufficing the whole island countryside,
With only prayer and laying on of hands,
Then at last Krishna said: 'I do not know,
Is there some power in him greater than he?
What power? Not Buddha, unconfessed, unknown,
Yet willingly with that large tolerance his
And bounty and sweet unconcern to claim
Acknowledgement of his gifts, working in Paul
Despite—nay, Buddha not, he long ago
Passed, and while living never power was he,
Though wisdom manifold. Yea, wisdom is,
That know I, power; but not the converse holds,
That power is wisdom; and pure power it is,
Not wisdom, that in Paul these wonders works;
No healing arts he uses, no medicine.
Whence is the power? Or what? Is Christ the power?'

In sequel of communings such as these
Held with himself, Krishna recalled the thought
Of the rejected proffer made him late
By Paul, of Mary's story of the Christ.
He now would hear it, if but still he might;
And so one calm bright day when winter smiled
As if in dream and vision of the spring,
With proud repression of his natural pride
He brought himself to say to Paul: "O Paul,
If thy friend Mary Magdalené yet
Will deign so great a grace to me, who own
My scant desert of it, I with all thanks
Would hear her tell the story of her Lord,"
A group of those who, loving and honoring her,
Loved from her lips again and yet again
To hear the story, old but ever new,
Of their belovéd Lord, were gathered then,
With Sergius Paulus welcomed of their band
And Krishna and the kindly Julius too,
In a recess sequestered of the shore
Where the sun shining from the open south
Made a sweet warmth at noon, and whence the sea,
So capable of fierceness, now was seen
With many-sparkling wavelets beautiful
And gentle in demeanor as a lamb.

Cast in no mould of outward loveliness
To lure the eye, but of a native worth
Such that her person noble seemed, and tall
Her stature—all instinct with stately grace
Her gesture and behavior—Mary sat
That vernal winter noon amid her friends,
Throneless and crownless, an unconscious queen:
Yet over all in her that made her state
Seem regal there presided the effect,
Other and finer, of a lofty mind
Arrived through sorrow to serenity,
And in the heart of pathos finding peace.
Such, Mary; who now thus took up her tale:
"The story of my knowledge of the Lord
Begins in shadow, shadow of shame for me;
At least I feel it for a kind of shame
To have been chosen of demons their abode;
The recollection is a pang to me.
I sometimes dare compare it in my mind
With what Paul suffers"—and she glanced toward Paul
A holy look of reverence understood—
"'Thorn in the flesh,' he calls it, but my thorn,
Within my spirit rather, rankles there,
As messenger of Satan buffeting me
Lest I should be exalted above measure—
I, to whom Christ the Lord used first His voice
Uttering that 'Mary!' when He from the dead
Rose in His glory. Surely I well should heed
How Mary, honored so, was the abode
Once of seven demons. Why this should have been
I cannot tell, unless to humble me.
Sometimes my pride—or is it sense of worth,
Sacred and not rebukable as pride?—
Whispers me, 'Mary, thou wert therefore choice
Of demons for their dwelling-place on earth,
Because thou wert pure found and they desired
A refuge that should least resemble hell.'

"Oh, how they rent me with their revelry,
The hideous tumult of their joy in sin!
And me they mixed up with their obscene mirth,
Till half I doubted it was I myself
Foaming my own shame out from helpless lips
That blasphemed God, then laughed with ribald glee.
I was not mistress of my mind or heart;
Reason in me was a distracted realm,
And will and conscience seemed like ships at sea
Driven with fierce winds and tossed toward hopeless wreck.

"I wonder at myself that I do not
Fight against God who strangely suffered it.
But, never, never! He suffers many things
Strangely, but I, this is His grace in me,
Bow down at all of them, saying, 'Amen!'
The crown of all my reasons for believing
That God is gracious, is that I believe.
For why do I believe, except that He
Makes me believe, against so many signs
Seen in the world abroad which swear in vain
He is not good? O, ever-blessed God,
Who let those demons seven take up in me
Their lodgment, that they might be so dislodged!

"On an accepted day for me the Lord
Was passing through the city where I dwelt,
And one that knew my miserable case
Implored Him to have mercy upon me.
He heard, He condescended, and He came.
But how at His first footsteps of approach,
How did those inmates evil within me rave!
What riot, mixed of panic and despair
And hatred! The whole land elect where Christ
Upon this earth appeared, when He appeared
Was rife with insurrection from the pit
Mad in attempt against Him. So in souls
Possessed by spirits from hell, if Christ drew nigh
Outrageous spasms of futile fury raged.
Those demons seven in me usurped me now
With tenfold more abominable rape.
They with my fingers clutched and tore my hair;
Gnashed with my teeth, and flickered with my tongue;
They frothed from forth the corners of my mouth
With foul grimace and execrable grin;
In random jaculation hither and thither
Flung my arms wildly like a windmill wrought
To ruin in a whirlwind's vortices;
Writhed all my bodily members, till I thought,
With what of power to think was left to me,
That surely nothing of corporeal mould
Had strength enough of life to suffer more."

While Mary Magdalené told these things,
Her noble face took on disfigurement
Expressive of indignant horror and shame;
And hardly had she been still beautiful
But for a pathos fine of gratitude
Tenderly crescent in it to the full,
That all was of the past, no present pain,
Naught but a memory! When her aspect cleared
And she composedly went on again,
It was as if the full moon late eclipsed
With clouds rode from amid them forth serene
In splendor, regent of the altered sky.
"Those were the pangs of my deliverance,
The throes of evil possession overcome.
'Come out of her!' He said; straight at that word,
Rending me like a travail and a birth,
They fled, and left me as one slain with wounds.
But it was a delicious sense of death.
I would be dead like that to be at peace!
I hugged the death-like trance in which I lay,
Until another word from the same voice
Made it seem sweeter yet to live indeed.
'I say unto thee, Maid, arise!' I heard
And I arose, obeying, I knew not how;
It was as resurrection from the dead,
Or first creation out of nothingness."