The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

"Rachel my mother sends Gamaliel hail,
And bids me haste to bring thee instant word!"
So Stephen, with quick-beating heart that broke
His words to pulses of sobbed sound, began:
"She says—but I, in hither coming, learned
More than my mother charged me with to thee.
Lo, wicked men of our own nation plot
This day to shed my mother's brother's blood.
They will desire the Roman to send down
Mine uncle Saul before the Sanhedrim,
To be by these examined once again;
But they will set upon him while he comes,
And so, or ever he can rescued be,
Make of mine uncle Saul a bloody corpse.
O Rabbi, master of mine uncle Saul,
Beseech thee, speak, bid me, what must I do?"

The old man bent upon the boy his brow,
And, slowly rousing without motion, said:
"The world grows gray in wickedness, my son;
What the Lord God of all intends, who knows?
Most wise is He, but deep, in many ways,
Past human finding out. Thine uncle Saul
Is hated for himself by Shimei
Yet more than for his cause. And Shimei
Is doubtless the artificer of this."
With inward adjuration then, a hand
Uplifted as in gesture to repel,
Gamaliel deeply added, "O my soul,
Into the secret of such man come not!"

Wherewith the aged tremulous lips were mute,
Though mutely moving still, as if the words
Said themselves over, again and yet again,
Within him, of that ancient fending spell.
Stephen, well-schooled in awe of the hoar head,
Stood an uneasy instant silent, then
Yielded to his untamable desire
Of action and impatience of delay.
"O Rabban," he importunately cried,
"But thy young servant's soul already God
Into the secret of this man has brought—
Doubtless to baffle him—knew I but how!"

"Yea, verily, Stephen; also that might chance,"
Gamaliel answered with benignity;
He almost let grave admiration breathe,
Through softly-lighted look and gentle tone,
A kind of benediction on the boy,
As he, unhastened, felt the youthful haste
That made the stripling Stephen beautiful;
"For David was a shepherd lad, when he
Was chosen of God to lay Goliath low.
Who knows but thou shalt save thine uncle Saul?
I loved him long ago—when thou wast not;
He went his way, and I abode in mine,
Ways widely parting, but I love him still.
And I would see him yet before I die.
Tell him, Gamaliel would see Saul once more.
Perhaps, perhaps, I might dissuade him yet.
Thine uncle, lad, was ever from a youth
Headstrong to think his thought and will his will.
No man might bend him from his own fixed bent;
If any man, then I; he honored me,
And hearkened reason from Gamaliel's lips.
Yea, send Saul hither, I would prove if I
Have not still left some saving power for him."

Gamaliel spoke half as from reverie,
Lapsed in oblivion of the present need.
"Rabban Gamaliel," bold upspoke the boy,
"Thy saving power I pray thee now put forth
To pluck mine uncle from the jaws of death.
I promise gladly then to bring thee Saul,
If so I may, when, by thy counsel, I
Have set him safe from those that seek his blood.
These have their mouth agape already now,
Their throat an open sepulcher for him.
I see, I see them spring upon their prey—
O master, master, must he die like this?"

The passionate pleading boy dropped on his knees,
And the knees clasped of the thus roused old man.
"Yea, I remember," now Gamaliel spoke;
"Weep not, my boy, but haste, my bidding do."
Therewith Gamaliel clapped his aged hands,
When instantly a servant to his call
Stood on the roof with, "Master, here am I."
"An inkhorn and a pen, with parchment; speed!"
Shot from Gamaliel's lips, so short, so sharp
With instance, that the man not went, but flew.
"Make thou a table of my knees, and write,"
Gamaliel to forestalling Stephen said;
"Write: 'I, Gamaliel, send this lad to thee;
I know him; he will tell thee what concerns
Thy hearing; thou canst trust him all in all.'
There, so is well; now superscribe it fair:
'To the chief captain of Antonia.'
Run, carry this—stay, I must sign it first
With mine own hand for certainty to him.
Up, haste thee to the castle, ask for Saul,
Him tell what thou hast learned, and show him this;
Saul will to the chief captain get thee brought,
And thou hereby shalt win believing heed.
No thanks, and no farewell, but thy feet wing!"

So sped, but of his own heart better sped,
Stephen quick got him to the castle gate,
Where, with Gamaliel's seal displayed—his truth,
Patent in face and voice, admitting him—
He gained prompt privilege of speech with Paul.
Paul heard the tidings that his nephew brought
And, summoning a centurion, said to him:
"Pray thee, to the chief captain take this youth;
He has a matter for his private ear."

So the centurion, taking Stephen, went
To the chief captain, and thus spoke to him:
"The prisoner Paul bade me to him and asked
That I would bring this youth to thee, who has
A certain matter he would tell thee of."

The chiliarch looked at Stephen glowing there
Before him in the beauty of his youth,
A beauty that was more than beauty now,
Touched and illumined into nobleness
By the pure ardor of the soul within
Kindling upon the face in flames of zeal—
The Roman, on the boy ennobled so
Feasting his eye a moment in fixed gaze,
Caught the contagion of that nobleness.
A waft perhaps of reminiscence waked
Blew soft and warm upon his heart from Rome;
Clear in the mirror of the Hebrew boy
Shining in sudden apparition so,
Fairer than fountain of Bandusia,
There swam perhaps an image to the eye
Of that stern Roman father, dear with home;
Perhaps he thought of a young Claudius,
Who, far away beneath Italian skies,
Was blooming crescent in a grace like that,
His father exile in Jerusalem!

However wrought on, Claudius Lysias,
Touched somehow to a mood of gentleness,
Took Stephen by the hand and went with him
Apart a little into privacy,
And said: "And now, my pretty Hebrew lad,
What matter is it thou hast hither brought?"
"O, sir," said Stephen, with half-downcast face
Of beautifying shame that he must bear
Such witness unto Roman against Jew,
"There are some Israelites not of Israel;
Pray thee, judge not my race by this that I
Must tell thee of my wicked countrymen.
Forty vile men have in Jerusalem,
By one the vilest who knows all the vile,
Been found to bind themselves by oath in league
Together all, under a dreadful curse,
Neither to eat nor drink, till they the best,
The noblest, of their countrymen have slain
Thy prisoner Paul. These presently will ask,
Or others speaking for them will—high climbs,
Sir, and wide spreads, this foul conspiracy
Of evil against good, among the Jews—
They soon will ask that thou to-morrow bring
Thy prisoner before the Sanhedrim
As of his cause to certify thyself.
But, while he comes, those base complotters will,
Lying in wait for this, upon him fall
Too quickly for the soldiers to forefend,
And slay him as beneath thy very eyes.
O, sir, do not thou give them their desire."