"I pray you be not overmuch disturbed,
But really you should know it, Saul, the chance
You fell in with this night at Bethany—
I mean your meeting of your sister there
Confessed a bold disciple of the Way—
Is likely to engender consequence.
It was a noble chance, Saul, from the Lord,
Pushed to your hand—would you had used it nobly!
Alas, at the extreme pinch, your virtue failed!
I can excuse it, while regretting it,
I myself, Saul. Not every one, I fear,
Is naturally so lenient as I am.
My sympathy is facile, but the most
Will say, 'Why did not Saul send her to prison?'
Now what you need is, to forestall such talk
By giving people something else to say.
Fill their mouth full with daily fresh report
Of other, and still other, great exploits
Achieved by you in the same line, and then
They either will forget that one lapse yours,
Or cease, from the perversion of a sister,
Connived at or colluded with by you,
To accuse a taint and pravity of blood
Inclining you yourself to heresy.
"I give myself no end of trouble for you,
And I have made discovery of the man
You must not fail to move for as next prize.
He is a notable fellow, full of quip,
Quaint turn of phrase, and ready repartee,
Each trick of tongue to catch the common ear,
And mischievous accordingly; for he
Boasts everywhere how, having been born blind
And grown to forty years of age in blindness,
He one day met Jesus of Nazareth,
When that deceiver spat upon the ground
And mixed an unguent of the clay, therewith
Smearing his sightless balls, and bidding him
Go wash them in the pool of Siloam;
He went and washed, and came a seeing man.
"Such is his story, and so plausibly
He tells it that a wide belief he wins.
'Hirani' is the name by which he goes;
Name self-assumed since his pretended cure,
A kind of label that he boldly thrusts
In people's faces to placard his lie.
'He made me see'—he, to wit, Jesus, mind—
As were no other 'he' in all the world!
Well, this Hirani to be weaver feigns,
Mere cover to that other trade he drives—
A famous flourishing one with him, they say—
Proselyte-making for the Nazarene.
Clap him in prison, Saul, let him repeat
His marvel to the unbelieving walls.
At present, many of the Way are fled
Hither and thither through the countryside,
But this man tarries to rehearse his tale.
So there your plan is, ready-wrought for you;
Now, Saul, go sleep upon it, and farewell."
Man through malicious mind more miserable,
More miserable man from every cause
Of inward sorrow save malicious mind,
Never were met and parted than when there
Shimei found Saul and left him thus that morn.
Once more Saul visited his couch in vain;
Sleep could he not, could not but round and round
Tread the treadmill of painful barren thought,
On this fixed only, with resentful will,
Not to do that which Shimei pressed him to.
So, having eaten, without appetite,
He flung forth in the street dispirited—
Aimless, nor on the way through hope to aim,
Hopeless, nor on the way through aim to hope—
Irresolute, deject, energiless,
Therefore the destined prey of whatso snare
Should sudden first waylay his nerveless foot—
Forth in the street flung, at his door to meet
An ambushed messenger of Shimei's,
Who from his master gave him written word:
"The Sanhedrim to sit this afternoon
In council on the case you will present.
All feel the utmost flattering confidence
That Saul will promptly bring his prisoner in.
The bearer of this can guide you to your man."
'Himself false witness now become, the wretch!'
Thought Saul. 'This buyer of false witnesses
Has falsely told my brethren that I put
Myself in pledge to do a special task,
His bidding, and has got the council called
In expectation on their part from me
That I will bring them in this man to judge—
Death doubtless meant, instead of prison, for him!
The wretch, the perjured wretch, and damnable!
Yet for me what escape? Alternative
None offers. Yea, denounce might I the man
Even to his teeth before them all a liar—
But to what profit? He could truly say
I listened, not demurring, when he broached
This his new plan, as I had done before
Concerning the arrests at Bethany
By him projected, meekly made by me!
I should seem caviller, than he more false,
And trifler with the ancient majesty
Prescriptive of the Sanhedrim.'
Saul writhed
With all the frail remainder of his force,
Writhed—and submitted. With the guide he went,
And the man found whom he, under duress
Resented, sought. The invisible chains which then
That captive captor wore, far worse galled him
Than those whereof he plained at Bethany.
Master more cruel yet the devil can be
Than vehement conscience blinded by self-will.
Pride driving makes an intimate misery,
But a more intimate misery pride driven!
At his loom seated—there his handicraft,
Late learned by him after sight given him late,
Busily plying—Saul's intended prey,
With his hands weaving, as the shuttle flew,
A fabric of coarse cloth, wove with his tongue,
That subtler shuttle in the loom of thought,
Discourse simple yet sage, for those to hear,
A goodly audience, who had gathered round
Him in his place of labor out-of-doors
Under an awning stretched that fenced the sun—
Drawn thither by the fame of what he told,
A strange experience never man's before.
"Thou art disciple of the Nazarene?"
Abruptly so, intruding, Saul inquired.
The accent of authority that spoke
In him, the masterful demeanor his,
All felt, and of the listeners some, afraid,
Withdrew in silence; but the sifted more
Who stayed clouded their aspect, and, with grim
Mutter in undertone exchanged between
Them, each with other, asked or answered who
This was that rudely thus and threateningly
Broke in upon them. Saul! the Sanhedrim!
Were dreaded names, but red runs Jewish blood,
And hot, and quick, and those affronted men
Scarce waited for their neighbor seen thus scorned
To answer yea to his stern challenger,
Ere they together moved in mass about
Saul unattended, naked of all arms
Save his authority, and, hustling him,
Seemed on the verge of using violent hands
To thrust him forth—nay, to Saul's ears there came
That pregnant word, ready on Jewish tongues,
Yet readier hardly than to Jewish hands
The deed, word full of instant menace, "Stones!"
Saul knew his danger and his helplessness;
But, far from terror, though not void of fear,
Blanching not blenching, he a tonic breath
Drew, in an air that to another man
Had softened all his fibre or dissolved.
Vanished that mood of feebleness he brought,
And in its place a resolute, alert,
Defiant sense of self-sufficing strength
Supported him, nay, buoyed him almost gay,
As thus, with bitter words, he taunted them:
"Yea, now ye show what lessons ye have learned
Of unresisting meekness at the feet
Of this your teacher—then not to resist
When ye are certain to be overpowered!
But twenty of you to one man are brave!
Nay, but one man may twenty of you scorn.
Back, there! Stand back! This man my prisoner is.
I, Saul, commissioned by the Sanhedrim,
Summon and seize him to appear this day
Before their just tribunal to be judged
As self-confessed disciple of the Way.
Follow me thou! Make way before me there!"
The peremptory tone, the audacity,
The prompt aggressive movement, with the proud,
High, lordly speech disdainful, the assured
Serene assumption of authority
Enforced by personal will as strong as power—
These for a moment's space surrounded Saul
With that inviolable immunity,
The nameless spell which perfect courage casts;
Nay, so far gave him full ascendant there
That he quite to his man his way had made
And on a shoulder laid the arresting hand.
But stay! not quelled, suspended only, seems
The indignant angry humor of the crowd.
Scarce has Saul uttered his last scornful words
And turned to front the men about him massed—
Not doubting but, with only the drawn sword
Of his fixed forward countenance, he shall
This side and that before him cleave a way
Wide from amid them forth to pass—upon
Such hinging-point scarce poises Saul, when they,
With many-handed violence, seize him
And, irresistibly uplifting, bear
Helpless, headforemost, ignominiously,
Whither they will.
In vain Hirani cries,
By turns rebuking and beseeching them;
In vain he follows, warning them beware
To involve themselves in risk fruitless for him;
In vain implores them even for Jesus' sake,
Whose name will be dishonored by their deed;
Presents himself in vain a prisoner
Willing to go with Saul unmanacled;
In vain avouches he, in any case,
Shall yield his person to the Sanhedrim,
Doubtless to suffer but the heavier doom
For what is doing, unless they refrain.
Hirani had adjured them by the name
Of Jesus, but those heady men, that name,
That mastership, owned not, Jews only still,
Still in the changed new spirit all unschooled.
So by their own mad motion ever mad
Growing, they hurtle Saul along the way—
He the while musing, with mind strangely clear,
How like to Stephen's lot his own is now!—
Till chance unlooked-for their wild turbulence stays.