The Epic of Saul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

"Thy face is toward Jerusalem," to Saul
Said Sergius; "but thy look is less of one
Arriving, journey finished, than of one
Forth setting on adventure planned abroad."
"I journey to Damascus," Saul replied:
"And thither also I," said Sergius.
Damascus-ward turned Saul his horse's head,
And slowly, with the Roman, now resumed
His onward way, while further Sergius said:
"Having a brief apprenticeship at arms
Accomplished, to Jerusalem I came,
Centurion still, urged by desire to see
Thy capital city, famed throughout the world.
Since witnessing—by lucky hap it fell
My military duty to be there—
Since witnessing that spectacle so strange
Of Stephen's stoning—strange to Roman eyes,
Yet to eyes Jewish doubtless quite as strange
Our Roman fashion, hanging on the cross—
All various ways of various tribes of men
From clime to clime, delights me to observe—
What comedy to the gods must we present!—
Since I saw Stephen slain with stones, I say,
Good fortune, and some interest made for me
At Rome, have given me this my welcome chance
To travel and more widely see the world.
Now to Damascus I as legate go."
"And of our Sanhedrim as legate, I,"
Said Saul, "if so without offence I may
From Jewish mode to Gentile dare my speech
Conform—legate, or hand executive,
Say rather, in some certain offices
Deemed needful, to consult my nation's weal."

With mutual question asked and answered, vein
Of old-time boyish reminiscence shared
Between them as together on they rode—
Their horses pricking each the other's speed—
The two soon overtook their retinues,
Who, seeing their chiefs adjoined in comradeship,
Themselves in comradeship dissolved their sense
Of race and race to mix as men and men.

So all day long together, side by side,
Riding, or resting in the noontide shade,
Sergius and Saul, a frank companionship,
Immixed their minds in speech of many things.
Young life, young health, glad sense of fair emprise,
High-hearted hope of boundless futures theirs,
Delicious weather and blithe season bland,
Blue cloudless heaven forever overhead—
By the sole sun usurped his tabernacle
Whence sovran virtue beaming into all—
Sweet voice of singing-bird, sweet smile of flower,
Sweet breath exhaled from tender-fruited vine,
Joy, a full feast, through every flooded sense—
And, heightening all, that billowy onward sway
Of motion without effort on their steeds,
Made, to those lord possessors of the world,
Their talking like the coursing of their blood,
Self-moved, or like the running of a brook
That laughs and sparkles on its downward way,
As ceasing never from its hope to drain
The fountain, brimming ever, whence it flows.

Of arms, of art, and of philosophy,
They spoke, and letters; spoke, too, of the fame
Of ancient Grecian masters of the mind,
Who ruled, and rule, by charm of prose or verse.
First, Homer, hoar with immemorial eld,
Pouring his epics in that profluent stream
Which, like his ocean, wandered round the world;
Bold Pindar, with his lyric ecstasies,
On throbbing wings of exultation borne
Into the empyrean, whence his song
Broken descends in showers of melody;
Father of history, Herodotus,
"Half poet, epic, or idyllic, he"—
So, Saul thereto assenting, Sergius said—
"With his Ionic strain mellifluous
Of wonder-loving artless narrative";
Thucydides, the soul of energy;
Æschylus, Titan; happy Sophocles;
With soft Euripides unfortunate;
Then Socrates, "Who wrote no books," said Saul,
"Or wrote most living books in living men;
Plato, the chiefest book of Socrates,
Yet mind so large and so original
That, in him reading what his teacher taught,
One knows not whether Socrates it be,
Or Socrates's pupil, that one reads"—
"Knows not, and, for delight, cares not to know,
Full-sated with the feast of such discourse,
So wealthy, wise, urbane, harmonious!"—
Stung to enthusiasm, thus Sergius,
Continuing what from Saul ceased incomplete.
"Our Tully," added he, "from Plato's well
Deepest his draughts drank of philosophy,
And, thence inspired, wrote such sweet dialogue,
Latin half seemed delectable as Greek."
"Yea, and a man of fine civility
In manners as in mind, your Tully was,"
Said Saul; "Cilicia keeps his memory green
For virtues long in Roman rulers rare.
His too a sounding, stately eloquence,
And copious; but Greek Demosthenes
Pleases me better, with that stormy stress
Of passion in him, reason on fire with love
Or hatred, that indignant vehemence
Which overwhelms us like a torrent flood,
Or, like a torrent flood, upon its breast
Lifts us, and tosses us, and bears us on!
He is more like our Hebrew prophets rapt
Above themselves in sympathy with God."

In talk like this the livelong day was spent;
Hardly the talkers heeding when they passed
Meadows of flowers pied rich in colors gay,
Poppy, anemone, convolvulus,
Bright marigold wide yellowing belts of green
Into a vivid gold that dazed the eye;
And heeding hardly if upsprang the lark
From almost underneath their horses' hoofs,
Startled to leave her humble hiding nest,
And, soaring, better hide her otherwise
Amid the blinding lightnings of the sun;
Such sights and sounds and glancing motions swift
Scarce heeded—yet, as subtle influence,
Admitted, each, to infuse insensibly
Into their mood an added joyousness—
The afternoon declined into the eve.
Passed now a fountain on the wayside cliff,
Coyly, through ferny leafage, shedding down
Its weeping waters shown in fresher green,
Up a long glen they mounted to a crest
Of hill where opened a soft grassy plain—
Inviting, should one wish his tent to spread—
And here they twain their double camp bid pitch.

Supper soon ended, Saul and Sergius,
Ere sleep they seek, a hill, not far, ascend,
The highest neighboring seen, less thence to view
The landscape round them in the deepening dark
Glooming, or even the heavens above their heads
Brightening each moment in the deepening dark,
Than youth's unused excess of strength to ease
With exercise, and to achieve the highest.
But there the splendors of the firmament,
Enlarged so lustrous through that Syrian sky,
Hailed such a storm of vertical starlight
Downward upon their sense as through their sense
Inward into their soul beat, and a while
Mute held them, hushed with wonder and with awe,
Awe to the Hebrew, to the Roman, joy.
Then said the Roman:
"This is like that place
Of glorious Homer where he hangs the sky
Innumerably bright with moon and stars
Over the Trojan host and their camp-fires:

'Holding high thoughts, they on the bridge of war
'Sat all night long, and many blazed their fires.
'As when in heaven stars round the glittering moon
'Shine forth exceeding beautiful, and when
'Breathlessly tranquil is the upper air,
'And in their places all the stars are seen,
'And glad at heart the watching shepherd is;
'So many, 'twixt the ships and Xanthus' streams,
'Shone fires by Trojans kindled fronting Troy.'"

"The spirit of Greece, with Greek simplicity,
A nobleness all of Homer, there I feel,"
Concession checking with reserve, said Saul;
"Our Hebrew, to us Hebrews, rises higher.
Homer, unconscious of sublimity,
Down all its dreadful height above our sphere
Brings the august encampment of the skies—
To count the number of the Trojan fires!
Our poet David otherwise beholds
The brilliance of the nightly firmament,
Seeing it mirror of the majesty
Of Him who spread it arching over earth,
And who yet stoops His awful thought to think
Kindly of us as Father to our race,
Nay, kingdom gives us, glory, honor, power,
And all things subjugates beneath our feet.
Let me some echoes from that harp awake
To which, with solemn touches, this his theme
Our psalmist David chanted long ago:
'Jehovah, our dread Sovereign, how Thy Name
'Is excellent in glory through the earth!
'Upon the heavens Thy glory hast Thou set;
'The heart of babe and suckling reads it there,
'And, raised to rapture, utters forth Thy praise,
'That mute may be the adversary mouth
'Which would the ever-living God gainsay.
'When I survey Thy heavens, Thy handiwork,
'The moon, the stars, Thou didst of old ordain,
'Man, what is he? that Thou for him shouldst care,
'The son of man, that Thou shouldst visit him.
'For Thou hast made him hardly lower than God,
'And dost with glory him and honor crown.
'Dominion over all Thy works to wield
'Thou madest him, and underneath his feet
'Put'st all things, sheep and oxen, roaming beast,
'And winging fowl, and swimming fish, and all
'That passes through the pathways of the seas.
'Jehovah, our dread Sovereign, how Thy Name
'Is excellent in glory through the earth!'"

Recited in slow solemn monotone,
As with an inward voice muffled by awe,
Those new and strange barbaric-sounding notes
Of Hebrew music shut in measured words
Smote on some deeper chord in Sergius' ear
That, trembling, tranced him silent for a while.
Then he said, rousing: "What a sombre strain!
From the light-hearted Greek how different!"

"Sombre thou callest it, and solemn I,
Who find in such solemnity a joy;
But different, yea, from the light-thoughted Greek."
Less as in converse than soliloquy
Deep-musing so to Sergius Saul replied.
"Our bard Isaiah modulates the strain
Into another mood less pastoral.
He pours divine contempt on idol gods,
On idol gods and on their worshippers;
And then majestically hymns His praise
Who made yon host of heaven and leads them out.
'To whom then will ye liken God?' he cries,
'Or what similitude to Him compare?
'The skilled artificer an image forms,
'And this the goldsmith overlays with gold,
'And tricks it smartly out with silver chains:
'Or haply one too poor for cost like this
'Chooseth him out a tree judged sound and good,
'And seeks a cunning workman who shall thence
'Grave him an image that may shift to stand!
'But nay, ye foolish, have ye then not known?
'Not heard have ye? You hath it not been told
'From the remote beginning of the world?
'From the foundations of the ancient earth
'Have ye indeed so missed to understand?
'He sits upon the circle of the earth
'And they that dwell therein are grasshoppers;
'He as a curtain doth the heavens outspread,
'And makes a blue pavilion of the sky.
'To whom then will ye liken Me? saith God;
'Whom shall I equal? saith the Holy One.
'Lift up your eyes on high, the heavens behold—
'Who hath these things created? who their host
'By number bringeth out, and all by names
'Calls? By the greatness of His might, for that
'So strong in power is He, not one star fails.'"