The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

INTERLUDE OF KRISHNA.

Publius, the governor of the island, who in gratitude to Paul for the healing of his father has opened his house to the Christians for their meetings, now expresses, through Sergius Paulus, his guest, a wish to hear himself the story that Mary Magdalené is relating. The company accordingly assemble in his house, and Publius is in courtesy asked to act as a kind of master of the feast. He accepts the part, and discharges it with much urbane demonstrativeness. Interrupting Mary at one point of her story with exclamations of surprise and pleasure, he proposes to Krishna that he offset what has just been told with something parallel from the life of his master Buddha. Krishna reluctantly complies, when, after some comment following from Paul, Mary resumes her narrative.

INTERLUDE OF KRISHNA.

For many following days in Melita
There was no season of hospitality
To man from Nature under open sky,
Genial for ease and comfort out of doors.
But the fair spacious halls of Publius
Stood smiling ever ready to entertain
Resort of Paul or any dear to Paul
Whether for social worship in prayer and psalm,
With hearing of Paul discourse of things divine,
Or for communion sweet of friend and friend.
Here presently were gathered yet again
The company that had with one accord
Already twice assembled to give ear
To Mary Magdalené while she told
Her story still unfinished of the Lord.

Publius, as Roman to his Roman peer—
And Roman peer so versed in all the arts
And all the accomplishments urbane that make
Amenity in companionship—had said
To Sergius Paulus (likewise, for his sake,
To Krishna), "Pray thee, honor thou my house,
And be content, abide with me a guest."
Now Sergius had to Publius rehearsed
The things that Mary those two afternoons
Recounted, and the Roman lord would fain
Hear from her lips the rest. So he was there—
Guest in a sort, while host, at his own hearth—
And Sergius Paulus said:
"O Publius, thou—
Most welcome, as thou makest us welcome here—
Shalt, so it please thee, us all it will please,
Be the feast-master in the present feast
Of story and of audience. Krishna here"—
And courteous toward the Indian Sergius bowed—
"Has also a story to tell us of his lord.
Whether with alternation and relief
Between our two historians, or in course,
Till one have finished, be the order best,
Judge thou for all, and all will grateful be."
"Let Mary Magdalené then go on,"
Said Publius, "if she will, from where she ceased
At the last audience;" and he turned to her
With, "Sergius has most kindly made me know
So far thy story, madam, with the rest
Of this good company. But, with thy peace,
And with the peace of Krishna and of all,
I will upon occasion interrupt—
For haply the occasion may arise—
To ask what contrast or what parallel
To this or that of Jesus, Buddha yields."

So Mary, with some heightened flush like shame
To speak in this new place and presence, yet
Sedately like herself and with a charm
Already round her ambient from the pure,
The perfect, the accomplished womanhood
That hers was, purged of self, charm by all felt
At once ere her beginning, thus began:
"I think that I was saying, as my words
I stayed at our last gathering on the shore,
How little like a tragedy so nigh
It looked to us, when we beheld the throngs
Strewing Christ's way before him with their robes
Flung down, and with green branches of the palm,
And shouting their hosannas to His name.
But Jesus was not blinded as were we!
He, on the brink of the descent arrived
Steep from the Mount of Olives leading down,
Beheld the holy city with its sheen
Of splendor from the temple roofs and walls,
And, far removed from glorying at the sight
As king might welcomed to his capital,
Wept over it, with much-amazing tears,
And cried: 'Hadst thou but known, but known, even thou,
Yea, even in this thy day but known the things
That to thy peace belong! But they are hid
Now from thine eyes. For days will come on thee—'
And then such dreadful days he told us of—
Days which our holy apostles think are nigh,
Whence their 'Maranatha!' so often heard,
Reminder watchword of the Lord at hand,
They solemnly adjuring by the days
Reserved for our Jerusalem, a wrath
To come upon her to the uttermost
Then when He, with the angels of His power,
And as the lightning shineth suddenly
Ablaze from one end to the other of heaven,
Shall back return in clouds to execute
His judgment on the city that slew Him!"
"But wherefore," the centurion asked once more,
And Mary with a loyal look toward him
Of honor for his kindly courtesy
That day and ever bountiful to them—
Look too betokening welcome of his return
To share the audience of her tale again
Late interrupted by that message brought
Seeming to be of sinister import—
Mary, with such a meaning so conveyed,
Paused, while the friendly Roman plied his quest:
"But wherefore did Jerusalem desire
To slay one innocent of crime like him?
Some reason of state I dared to guess there was,
But what the reason of state, thou didst not tell,"
Turning to Paul he said, and Paul replied:
"The Jewish rulers of the people said:
'This Jesus, if we let him thus alone,
Will draw all men to follow after him;
The Romans then will come and take away
Alike this city which belongs to us,
Yea, and the nation over which we rule.'
The rescued remnant of authority
Wielded by the chief priests and Pharisees
Over our nation under Roman sway,
This still was dear to them and this they feared
To forfeit if the fame of Jesus grew."

"And grow it did surpassing even their fears,"
Mary resumed, at silent sign from Paul;
"For but a little while before, and nigh
Jerusalem, a height of miracle
Jesus had wrought. One four days dead, nay, one
Already four days in his sepulcher,
Our Lord, with only 'Lazarus, come forth!'—
Commanded in loud voice before the tomb—
Summoned to life again. The dead came forth
Bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his head
Bound with a napkin round about—no pause,
Not of an instant, in obeying that word,
Prevention none felt from impediment.
Abrupt descent then from such miracle
To the plain level of sobering commonplace.
For he whom Jesus from the dead could call
To leave his tomb, to stand upright, to walk,
Unconscious of obstruction, swathed about
With grave-clothes though he was, must be released
By others from his bonds; the Master said
To those near by, 'Loose him and let him go.'"

While Mary told these things, a sense diffused
Of something felt by all the Christians there,
Felt, but acknowledged not in word or sign,
Signalled itself despite to all the rest;
And through a kind of dumb intelligence
It came that Publius, Julius, and that deep
Discerning Indian, Krishna, with one mind
To all, unspoken, fixed inquiring gaze
On Rachel and on Stephen, who their hands
Meantime had silently, unconsciously,
With simultaneous mutual movement clasped,
As if in token of some memory
Which they that moment felt between them rise,
Some sacred memory, some undying love.
Then Mary, with the happy instinct hers
Of what was fitting to be said, and when,
And what more fitting to be left unsaid,
And how to say all, or how silent be,
Assuming, with a look of deference
First toward the twain, their present leave to speak—
Granted to her as so much trusted in
For wisdom, and for love in wisdom poised—
Said, with a certain courtesy implied
For Publius as the master of the feast,
And for the others needing to be told:
"That Lazarus, raised by Jesus from the dead,
Is to the Christians of this company
A name the dearer that to two of us
He is the dearest memory of their lives.
For after he had risen from the dead
At Jesus' call he lived his human life
As he before had done, till in due time
A husband and a father he became.
But Rachel lives in honored widowhood,
As, with her, half in orphanhood lives Stephen,
Because he after fell asleep in Christ
To be waked only when Christ comes again."