The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

A tender pause succeeded, which all filled
With solemn, some with wondering, thought; and then,
Tempered, beyond his will or consciousness,
To a contagious mood of sympathy,
Publius most gently as feast-master spoke:
"The height of miracle well calledst thou
Such summoning of the dead to life again;
For greater wonder were not possible.
To see it, as thou sawest it, was a gift
Indeed from the supernal powers; next is,
To have it in report of one who saw it;
And then, for attestation of thy word,
Where attestation surely need was none
Yet serving for attestation, to behold
Here those who knew the dead man raised to life
As husband and as father—all makes seem
The story like reality itself.

"And now," to Krishna turning, Publius said:
"O Krishna, pray from thee a parallel.
What comparable wonder wilt thou show
That thou hast seen thy master Buddha work?"

The countenance fell to Krishna hearing this,
But quickly himself recovering he replied
"I am not able out of all I know
Concerning Buddha aught this day to tell
As one that saw and heard; I never saw,
I never heard, lord Buddha act or speak."
"Then from report that some eye-witness gave
Thee, speak and tell us what thou wilt, and we
Will be therewith content"—so Publius, dashed
A little from his lively hope, but fain
To ease the discomposure of his guest.
But Krishna, in no wise more cheerful, said:
"Nor from eye-witness have I aught received
That my lord Buddha either said or did:
He lived and passed five hundred years ago."

"But doubtless some memorials," Publius said,
"Were written by eye-witnesses of him,
While he still lived, or close upon his death,
To keep so dear a memory alive
And certify it to all aftertime.
So, out of such memorials known to thee,
Fresh still, though old five hundred years, because
Then written when the images were fresh,
Imprinted on the writer's mind of things
He either saw or heard himself from Buddha—
Strange virtue has eye-witness testimony
In simultaneous records of the time
To stay, though old, perennially young—
I say, then, out of such memorials stored
And treasured up in mind to thee speak thou,
And it shall be to us as if thou hadst seen."

Publius, with all sincerity of aim
To hearten Krishna and make most the worth
Of that which he, although eye-witness not,
Nor yet reporter from eye-witness known,
Should proffer to that hospitality
Of audience touching his dear master Buddh,
Had unawares confused him more and more.
For the first time the Indian felt give way
A little, melting underneath his feet,
His standing-ground of settled certitude:
'Was it all quicksand? Nothing there of rock?'
But he made answer: "O my courteous host,
All is uncertain, for tradition all,
Concerning times, and order of events.
Indeed, we Indians care not for these things,
But trust full easily, or, not trusting, yet
Rest as if trusting, in much unconcern
Whether that which we learn be wholly true,
Or partly not; and yet I have heard it said
That, close upon the passing of the Buddh,
A council of five hundred faithful met
Who said together in accord complete—
No sentence varying, nay, no syllable—
The mighty mass of all the Exalted One's
Instructions; but no writing then was made,
Nor again afterward an hundred years,
When such rehearsal came a second time.
So, truth to say, where all is doubt—for me,
I fear there was, for half five hundred years
After he died, no record in writing made
Of what our master Buddha wrought and taught.
Save for those synods of rehearsal met,
That precious memory lived precariously,
As himself lived, the master, vagabond
And mendicant from loyal mouth to mouth.
But such tradition was too vital to die;
Compact of only vocal breath, it still
Persisted and would still for aye persist
Though never at all in written record sheathed.

"But the fourth part of a millennium
After lord Buddha died, a synod sat
Of his discreet disciples, who decreed
That then at least a record should be framed
In writing of the master's deeds and words."

"Most fit," said Publius, who to complaisance,
His impulse and his habit, now adjoined
A certain willingness not unamiable
To magnify the twofold part he played
As host and as symposiarch, and make cheer
All that he could for Krishna; "aye, most fit;
And doubtless they were men, that synod, famed
For wisdom and for virtue; name them thou,
Or at least some, the chief, that we may here
Honor them for their worth."

But Krishna said
(For, by some sense of disadvantage stung,
He took reprisals of his gentle sort):
"What if I could not name them? What if they,
Concerned less to survive themselves in fame,
Mere empty wraiths of sound to mortal ears
In futile issues of dissolving breath,
Repeated echoes of unmeaning names—
What if, I say, concerned less so to be
Vainly themselves remembered for a day
Than to keep living for the use of men
The saving truths their master Buddha taught,
Those saints and sages of the elder time
Let themselves perish quite from human thought?"

But Publius interposed, insisting, fain
To show some ground of reason in his mind,
Beyond mere curiosity for words,
Why he desired to know those ancient names.
"Yet were it some support," he said, "to faith
In those same saving truths as truly saved
Themselves for men, after so long a term
Of vagabondage (to take up thy word),
Of vagabondage and of mendicancy—
The fourth part of a thousand years consumed
In flying forward hither from mouth to mouth—"
So far, uncertain of his way, he groped;
Bethinking then himself of one more chance,
That might be, of the proof he sought, he said:
"And still, O Krishna, if those nameless ones,
Deserving well to be not nameless, nay,
Of far-renownéd name; nor less, but more,
Deserving that they waived their own desert;
If these—nobly not mindful whether they
Remembered or forgotten were of men,
Yet heedful not to let the coming time
Fail of the truth that they themselves had found
So dear, or dwell in any needless doubt
Of its just phrase—committed at the last
The task of fixing it in written form
To some illustrious man who would consent
To forego for himself his choice of being
Obscure, unknown to aftertime, and lend
The great weight of his name to the result,
For satisfaction to inquiring souls—
Why, that were much, indeed perhaps enough,
And I before required beyond my right."

Demand upon demand sincerely so
Urged by the genial host upon his guest
As if urbane concessions granted him,
Involved the patient Indian more and more.
Pressed beyond even his measure now at length,
He brooked no longer to allow the toils
To multiply about him which he felt
Were fast entangling him to helplessness.
He boldly spoke to disengage himself:
"We of the East, O Publius, are not such
As you are of the West. We do not count
The years as you do, fixing fast our dates.
We live content a kind of timeless life
That moves continuous on from age to age
Unreckoned. Countless generations come
And go, and come and go, like forest leaves
From year to year, and no one takes account
Of those more than of these. Why should we? Those,
As these, are ever to each other like,
Harvest and harvest endlessly the same.
What profit were there in a history,
What history indeed were possible,
Of either leaves or men? Let leaves and men
Together to oblivion go; be sure
There will not fail to follow leaves and men
To fill the places never vacant left.