After further persecution accomplished by him in Judæa, Saul, with spirits recovered, sets out for Damascus to carry thither the persecuting sword. Pausing on the brow of hill Scopus to survey Jerusalem just left, he soliloquizes. At the same moment, there rides up a troop of Roman horse escorting a man who turns out to be Sergius Paulus, an old-time acquaintance of Saul's, also bound to Damascus. The two pursue their journey together, highly enjoying their ride in that charming season of spring weather, and delightedly conversing on the way. They talk over Greek literature, and in particular by starlight at the close of the first day's journey, Sergius Paulus having by occasion recited an apposite passage of Homer, Saul matches and contrasts this first with a psalm of David, and then additionally with a strain from the prophet Isaiah. This gives rise to conversation on ensuing days, in which religious questions are discussed. Sergius declares himself an atheist of the Epicurean sort, and he plies Saul with incredulous inquiries about the religion of the Jews—Saul answering with Hebrew conviction and earnestness. The two part company at Neapolis (Shechem) because Sergius Paulus halts there, and Saul, in the spirit of true Jewish strictness, will for his part not rest till he has quite passed the bounds of Samaria.
SAUL AND SERGIUS.
Not yet his fill of slaughter supped, though forth
Afar the timorous flock of Jesus now
Were from before his restless, ravening, fierce,
Rapacious sword out of Judæa fled
To alien lands remote, beyond the heights
Of Hermon with their everlasting snows,
And farther to the islands of the sea—
Not yet, even so, his fill of slaughter supped,
Saul had from the high-priest commission sought
To search among the Hebrew synagogues
Of Syrian Damascus, and thence bring
Bound to Jerusalem whomever found,
Woman or man, confessing Jesus Christ.
The season was fresh flowering spring; the earth
Was glad with universal green to greet
The sun once more, returned in his blue heaven
After his winter's sojourn in the south.
How blithe the welcome of the morning was,
Forth looking from his east across the Hills
Of Moab on the just awakening world!
Saul met it with a sense as if of spring
And morning linking hand in hand for dance
Together in the courses of his blood,
As, mounted on a palfrey fresh and fleet,
With servitors attendant following him,
He issued jocund from Damascus gate.
The animal spirits of youth and health in him,
The joy of new adventure, the fine pulse
Of life felt in the buoyant, bounding step
With which his steed advanced him on the road,
The secret pleasure of release at last,
Release and long secure removal, won,
Through growing leagues of distance interposed,
From the abhorred access of Shimei—
These, with the season and the hour so bright,
Brightened the darkling heart of Saul to cheer.
He was a radiant aspect, fair to see,
Fronting his future with that sanguine smile!
The acclivity surmounted of a hill,
Whence downward dipped his road, declining north,
And farewell glimpse gave of Jerusalem,
Saul rein drew on his foamy-flankéd steed,
And, about winding him, paused, looking back.
His retinue, far otherwise than he
Mounted, part even on foot, with sumpter beasts
Bearing camp equipage, behind were fallen.
These, presently come up, he lets pass on
Before him in the way, while still at gaze,
There on the back of his indignant steed
Resentful to be curbed in mid-career—
Companion hoofs heard leaving him behind—
Saul sits, perusing, with an inner eye,
Yet more than with his outer, what he sees.
Half-shadow and half-light, Jerusalem
He sees, smitten athwart her level roofs
With sunshine from the horizontal sun,
The temple of Jehovah in the midst,
As if itself a sun, so dazzling bright
With its refulgence of reflected beams;
While, round about, the warder mountains stand,
Bathing their sacred brows in sacred light.
Saul's heart distends immense with patriot's joy,
Yet joy pierced through and through with patriot's pain.
"O beautiful for situation, thou,
Jerusalem!" he fervently bursts forth.
"Peace be within thy walls, prosperity
Within thy palaces! Yea, yet again,
Now for my brethren and companions' sakes,
Say I, 'Within thee, peace!' Lo, my vow hear:
For that the temple of the Lord my God
Is in thee, I henceforth thy good will seek.
And Thou, Jehovah in the heavens! behold,
Saul for himself that ancient promise claims:
'Prosper shall he Jerusalem who loves.'
For love not I Jerusalem, with love
To anguish, for her anguish and her tears?
Take pleasure in her stones, favor her dust,
O God, my God! Is not the set time come?
Do I not hear Thee say: 'Awake, awake,
Put on thy strength, O Zion, long forlorn,
And beautiful thy garments put thou on,
Jerusalem! Henceforth no more shall come
The uncircumcised into thee, nor the unclean!'"
"Amen!" Saul added, with a gush of tears,
The light mercurial feeling in his heart
Less to sad sinking, weighted down, than all,
With fluent lapse, to pleasing pathos changed.
Into that strain, so ardent and so true,
Of patriot prayer, deeply had braided been,
Half to himself unknown, a silent strand
Of subtle self-regard, vague personal hope
That would have spurned to be imprisoned in words:
'The new Jerusalem that was to be,
Should she not Saul her chief deliverer hail!'
Musing, and praying, and beholding, so,
Saul suddenly a sound of clanging hoofs
Heard, and, his eyes quick thither turning, saw,
Between hill Scopus, on whose top he stood,
And the Damascus gate through which he came,
Advancing toward him on the Roman road—
Cemented solid with its rutted stones,
Like an original stratum of the sphere—
A turm of horse, large not, but formidable,
Caparison and armor gleaming bright,
And with a nameless air forerunning them
Of wide-renownéd might invincible
Expressed in that momentous rhythmic tread
Four-footed, underneath which from afar
With pulse on pulse now rock to iron rang.
The cavalcade, by slow degrees more slow,
Moved up the acclivity till, reached the brow,
Sank to a walk their pace, when Saul perceived
An arméd escort was convoying one
Thereby betokened an ambassador,
Somewhither posting on affair of state,
Or haply citizen of high degree
Honored with ceremonious retinue.
This man regarded Saul with curious look
Respectful, which almost admiring grew;
And gravely, as their mutual glances met,
The youthful Roman to the youthful Jew
Inclined in distant salutation meant
For natural courtesy due from peer to peer.
Saul, in like wise, his greeting gave him back;
Whereon the Roman, reining to one side
His horse, and halting, said: "Peace, but methinks
I saw thee late, months since it may have been,
Where that fanatic Stephen suffered death
With stoning at your angry elders' hands."
"I, in that act of punishment," said Saul,
"As loyal Jew befitted, took my part."
"Nay, but as now I read thy features nigh,"
Sudden more earnest grown, the Roman said,
"Labors my brain with yet a different thought.
Somewhere we twain must earlier still have met.
In Tarsus I some boyish seasons spent;
I there, by chance full well-remembered, knew
A Hebrew-Roman boy whose name was Saul."
"Then Sergius Paulus is thy name," said Saul,
"And Saul am I—and Saul to Sergius, peace!"
Who but as man and man just now had met
Greeted again in sense of comradeship.