The Epic of Saul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

Without the limits of this earthly sphere,
Immeasurable distances beyond
The region of the utmost fixéd stars,
Nay, high above all height, transcending space,
Transcending time, subsists a different world,
Invisible, inapprehensible
To whatsoever power of human sense,
All unimaginable even—so far
Removed from aught that ever we on earth
Have seen, or heard, or felt, or known, or guessed.
Believed in only, and not otherwise
Than to the vision of meek Faith revealed
(Though indefeasible inheritance
Reserved for her fruition after death),
Yet is that world unknown substantial more
Than all this solid-seeming universe
Of matter round about us that assaults
Our senses daily with its imminence,
Its impact, as if nothing else were real!
But till the destined moment, we must deem,
Much more, must speak, of that transcendent world,
And of our human brethren there insphered,
In figure borrowed of our mortal state.

While those things nigh Damascus so befell,
And now the night was almost waned to morn,
Its different morning in that different world
Dawned to the saints forever summering there
In bliss and glory with their glorious Lord.
Morning in the celestial Paradise
Is not as morning here, new-springing day
Crescent the same out of eclipsing night:
No night is there, and therefore no vicissitude
Of dark and bright to separate the days.
Yet condescends our Father to their frame,
Still finite though immortal, still in need
Of changes to diversify their state,
And punctuate into periods the smooth lapse,
Else cloying with prolonged beatitude,
Of that eternal dateless life serene
Lived by the happy souls in Paradise;
Our Father condescends and gives them days
And days, with difference of each from each,
That they may reckon up and date their bliss;
No night is there, but without night a morn.
Morning in Paradise is perfect light
Ineffably more fair become to-day
Than yesterday, forever, through more fair
Disclosure, dawn on dawn, eternally
Made of the glory of the face of Him
In whom to His belovéd God still shines.

Morn such had risen once more in Paradise,
When there a group elect together drawn,
Wearing a brow of expectation each,
Stood on a flowery hill enringed around
To be almost an island with a loop
Of river, the river of life, that lucent flowed
Mirroring ranks of trees along its banks
Ruddy or gold in gleams of fruitage seen
Glimpsing against the rich green of their leaves—
Here stood a chosen group who waited now
Tidings a messenger to come should bring.
These were those all who lately on the earth
Had suffered death for Jesus' sake through Saul—
All saving Stephen; he, at point of dawn
That morning, had been summoned by his Lord
To bear from Him some embassy of grace.
The man born blind was there whom Jesus healed
To double seeing, seeing of the soul,
As of the body, and whom not the threat
Of stripes, of stones, and not the blandishment
Of gentle words from lips with power of death
Could bribe to live at cost of least unfaith
Toward his Light-giver and Redeemer Lord—
He, and a little company besides,
Women with men, who like him lightly recked
Of loss but for a moment then and there
Compared with that far more exceeding weight
Of glory now, in over-recompense,
Forever and forever sealed their own.

This little group, beyond their happy wont
Beatified with hope that heavenly morn,
Soon greet one coming whose irradiate brow
Bespeaks him fresh from audience with the King;
Stephen it was, whose earthly-shining face
Was shadow to the brightness now it wore.
The martyr to his fellow-martyrs brought
Glad tidings; they were all that day to see
Break forth in power the glory of the Lord.
"Saul," Stephen said, "still breathes his threatening out
And slaughter aimed against the church of Christ;
He journeys to Damascus in this mind.
But the Lord Christ will meet him in the way
And overthrow him with resistless light.
Ours is to tarry on this pleasant hill
Of prospect, and, hence gazing, all behold,
Tasting a sweet revenge of Paradise,
To see our prayers fulfilled, in Saul become
From persecutor brother well-beloved,
And builder from destroyer of the church."

So these there sat them down upon the mount.
Here, gaze turned ever earthward, they in talk
Of earthly things that still were dear to them
Consumed the happy heavenly hours, until,
To those their native Syrian climes, drew nigh
Noontide; then, in a new theophany,
The transit of a shadow!—seldom seen
There where was neither sun, nor moon, nor star,
But all was equal universal light—
Came sudden notice to their eyes to watch
The Messianic dread procession forth,
Christ in the majesty of solitude,
Swifter than meteor's fall, from Paradise.

He, purposed not to slay, only cast down
Saul from the top of his presumptuous pride,
And break him from his disobedient will,
Would not in His essential glory meet
His creature, lest he be abolished quite,
But dimmed Himself with splendor which, more bright
Than the supreme effulgence of the sun
At mid-day in a crystal firmament,
Fixed, but more vivid than the fleeting flash
Of lightning when its beam burns most intense,
Was splendor yet of ray less luminous
Than the accustomed radiance of His face,
And showed as cloud against that shining sky.

For, in that unimaginable world
Of perfect, purged from sin and sin's defect,
The senses of the blest inhabitants,
Their organs and their faculties, are all
Inured to bear with ease, with pleasure bear,
Continuance and intensity of light
That mortal frames like ours would quite consume.
Those there from light need neither change nor rest,
Their proper substance is illuminate,
And their bliss is to bathe themselves in light,
And light, more light, drunk in at every pore
From the bright omnipresence of the Lord,
Revealed each day brighter forevermore,
Makes their eternal life eternal joy.

But on this day select of many days,
The happy people all of Paradise
Saw Jesus as a darkness of less light,
A glancing shadow, pass from out their sphere—
The most unweeting whither or why He went;
But those knew who kept vigil on the mount.
These had their sense for sight and sound that day
Exalted to seraphic keen and clear
Beyond the glorious wont of Paradise;
While a circumfluous ether interfused
For their behoof between where thus they stood
And where they earthward looked, a subtile air,
A discontinuous element rare like space,
Was now such vehicle, so voluble,
For lightest appulse to both eye and ear
Supernal, thrice sevenfold refined, as made
Seem nigh things seen or heard, however far.

Fixed to behold and hearken thus at ease,
They saw afar two pilgrim companies,
Where, near Damascus, these a shady tuft
Of grove or thicket, in the arid waste
Of burning sand, at noontide hour had found,
For rest and coolness ere their goal they gained.
Those pilgrims just in act, as seemed, to start
Anew upon the way for their last stage
Of going, one, well recognized for Saul—
Remounted not from halt, but some few steps
Leading his horse with bridle-rein remiss
Along his destined path—comrade beside,
Was by this comrade asked, as in discourse
After suspense renewed: "How was it, then,
Through what offence, that he deserved his death?
Since atheist not, and not idolater,
Nor yet of those Samaritan heretics,
Wherein did Stephen fail of loyalty?"
"Traitor was he," said Saul, "to our chief hope,
He taught that Jesus Nazarene was Christ;
Nay, that impostor, he, blaspheming, made
Coequal partner of the eternal throne
And solitary majesty of God;
Worst of idolatry such blasphemy!
Jesus of Nazareth anathema!"

Almost, at this, a shudder of horror ran
Chill through the spiritual pure corporeal frames
Wherein were housed those blessed essences,
Hearing from earth such words in Paradise!
They then considered at what cost were bought
Perpetual consciousness of things terrene!