The Epic of Saul

BOOK XIV.

FOR DAMASCUS.

Coming together again at Cæsarea Philippi (Paneas, Banias) after an interval of days, Saul and Sergius cross the southern spur of Hermon. A violent thunderstorm comes slowly up during the afternoon, which gives Sergius occasion, by way of mask to his own secret disquietude, to quote his Epicurean poet Lucretius on the subject of Jupiter's control of thunderbolts. As the storm increases in violence, the fears of Sergius overpower him, and he breaks down at last into a deprecatory prayer and vow to Jupiter. Saul then, the storm still raging, rehearses from Scripture appropriate fragments of psalm, timing them to the various successive bursts of tempest. The sound of a tranquil human voice has a quieting effect on Sergius, and even on the frightened steeds of the two travellers. The storm ceases, and they pass the night under a serene sky, ready to set out the next morning for the last stage of their journey to Damascus.

FOR DAMASCUS.

The splendor of the morning yet once more
Was a theophany in Syria,
When Saul and Sergius, met, from Paneas
Started, with mind to overpass that day
The spur of Hermon interposed between
Them and Damascus.
"Strange the human bent,"
Said Saul, "the universal human bent,
Toward worship of unreal divinities!
'Paneas!' The very sound insults the name
And solitary majesty of God,
Jehovah, Ever-living, Only True.
Think of it! 'Pan', forsooth! And God, who made
These things which we behold, these waters, woods,
And mountains, glens, and rocky cliffs, and caves,
Who these things made, and made the mind of man
Capacious of Himself, or capable
At least of knowing Him Creator, such
A God thrust from His own creation forth,
By His own noblest creature thus thrust forth,
That a rough, rustic, gross, grotesque, burlesque,
Goat-footed, and goat-bearded, horned and tailed
Divinity like Pan, foul caricature
At best of man himself who fashions him,
And out of wanton fancy furnishes him
His meet appendages of brute wild beast—
That this deform abortion of the brain
Might take the room, made void, of God outcast,
And, with his ramping, reeling, riotous rout
Of fauns and satyrs, claim to be adored!
I feel the Hebrew blood within me boil
At outrage such from man on God and man!
Phœbus Apollo seems an upward reach
Of human fancy in theogony;
Some height, some aspiration, there at least,
Toward what in man, if not the noblest, yet
Is nobler than the beasts that browse, or graze.
Apollo, too, I hate, but I loathe Pan!"

"We Romans are more catholic than you
Hebrews," said Sergius, "more hospitable
To different peoples' different gods. Our own
Synod of native deities we have,
But we make room for others than our own.
From Greece we have adopted all her gods,
And all the gods of Egypt and the East
Are domiciled at Rome—all save your god,
Jehovah, his pretensions overleap
The bounds of even our hospitality,
Who not on any terms of fellowship
Will sit a fellow with his fellow-gods.
Him sole except, it is our policy
To entertain with wise indifference
In brotherly equality all gods
Of whatsoever nations of the earth.
A temple at Rome have we, Pantheon called,
So called as to this end expressly built
That there no human god might lack a home.
Such is our Roman way; your Hebrew way
Is different; different races, different ways."
Sergius so spoke as if concluding all
With the last word of wisdom to be said;
He paused, and Saul mused whether wise it were
To answer, when thus Sergius further spoke:
"I marked late, when 'Neapolis!' I said,
'Sychar!' saidst thou, in tone as if of scorn;
'Hateful,' thou also calledst Samarian soil—
Wherefore? if I may know." "'Sychar,'" said Saul,
"Imports deceit, and there deceit abounds.
From the Samaritans we Jews refrain;
Corrupters they of the right ways of God.
Across their soil we either shun to go,
Or, going, hasten with unpausing feet."

"Those also have their ways!" said Sergius;
"Such humors of the blood thou wilt not cure.
Worship Jehovah ye, it is your way,
And let us Gentiles serve our several gods,
Or serve them not, be atheists if we choose—
I, as thou knowest, an atheist choose to be—
Of comity and peace the sole safe rule.
This therefore is the sum—I say it again—
Ways diverse worship men, or worship not,
All as our natural bents may us incline.
Keep your Jehovah, you, He is your God,
Chosen, or feigned and fashioned to your mind—
Keep Him, but not impose your ethnic dream,
Or guess, of deity on all mankind."

"No dream of ours," said Saul, "Jehovah is.
Nay, nay, alas, far otherwise than so,
Our Hebrew dreams of God have, like the dreams
Dreamed by all races of mankind besides,
Grovelled to low and lower, have bestial been,
Or reptile, nay, to insensate wood and stone
Descended; we have loved idolatry,
We, with the rest, and hardly healed have been,
Though purged with hyssop of dire history,
Constrained—against the subtly treacherous soft
Relentings of our heart, oft yielded to,
Then punished oft full sore, which bade us spare
Whom God to spare forbade—constrained to slay
With our own swords, abolish utterly,
The idolatrous possessors of this land,
In judgment just on their idolatry,
And lest we too be tainted with their sin;
Yet foul relapse despite, and after, stripes,
Stripes upon stripes again and yet again,
Suffered from the right hand of God incensed,
Defeat, captivity, long servitude,
With the probe searched, with the knife carved until
Scarce left was life to bear the cautery
Wherewith a holy and a jealous God
Out of our quivering soul throughly would burn
That clinging, deep, inveterate human plague
Inherited from Adam in his fall,
That devil-taught depravity which prompts
Apostasy to other gods no gods—
Hardly so healed, with dreadful chastisement,
Has been my nation of her dreadful crime.
Loth, slow, ingrate, rebellious pupils, we
Taught have been thus to worship only God—
Jehovah, only God of the whole earth!"

Those last words as he spoke, Saul his right hand
Swept round in waving gesture—for they now
A height of goodly prospect had attained,
Wherefrom, pausing to breathe their laboring steeds,
They backward looked beneath them far abroad—
Swept round his hand, as if the circuit wide
Of the whole earth might there his words attest;
Their fill they gazed, then upward strained once more.
At length a stage of smoother going reached,
Sergius, abreast of Saul, took up the word:
"Yea, might one deem thy Hebrew race indeed
Had been the subjects of such history,
So purposed, then sound were thine argument
And thy Jehovah would be very God,
And God alone, and God of the whole earth.
But other races too besides thine own
Have had their chances, their vicissitudes;
Fortune to all has served her whirling wheel,
And every several race has had its turn
Of rising now, now sinking in the dust.
Wherefore should we you Hebrews sole of all
Reckon divinely taught by history,
Taught to be theists in an atheist world,
Or in a world idolatrous, of God
The True, the Only, only worshippers?"

"The other nations all," so Saul rejoined,
"Followed the bent of nature, had their will,
What they chose did, and were idolatrous,
God gave them up to their apostasy;
Us God withstood, His Hebrews He forbade;
With the same bent as others, as headstrong,
We Hebrews strangely went a different way,
And upward moved against a downward bent.
A fiery flaming sword turned every way
Forever met us on the errant track,
And forced us right though still found facing wrong.
God's prophets did not fail, age after age—
Until for that we needed them no more—
To warn us, chide us, threaten, plead, conjure,
Against our passion for idolatry.
Yet, as defying all that God could do,
Such was the force of that infatuate love
Fast-rooted in the sottish Hebrew heart
For idol-worship, that King Solomon,
The greatest, wisest, wealthiest of our kings,
Mightiest, most famous, most magnificent,
The glory and the crown of Israel,
The wonder and the proverb of the East—
This king, at point of culmination highest
To the far-shining splendor of our race,
The son of David, Solomon, turned back
From God who gave him his pre-eminence,
From God, the Living God, turned back, and sold
His heart, his spacious, all-experienced heart,
To gods that were no gods.
"Against a will,
A set of nature, a prime pravity
Stubborn like this, and tenfold impulse given
Through such example in our first of kings,
That, conflagration of infection round,
We should escape and not idolatrous be,
We only of all nations on the earth,
This, without miracle, were miracle,
A miracle of chance, confounding chance,
Monstrous, incredible, impossible!
Nay, miracles on miracles were for us wrought,
The manifest finger of God unquestionable,
Yet to ourselves ourselves, to all men we,
Wisely looked on, are chiefest miracle,
Witness from age to age that God is God."

With Hebrew heat, thus Saul to Sergius;
The frequent steep ascents meanwhile, the halts
For rest, for prospect, or for dalliance
Under some cooling shade of rock or tree—
Shield from the waxing fervors of the sun—
Slack pace, due to the humors of their steeds
Unchidden while their masters held discourse,
Left the twain still below the topmost crest
Of Hermon when the noontide hour was on.
Large leisure to refection and repose
Allowed, with converse, and mid-afternoon
It was, before to horse again were got
The horsemen, and their forward way resumed.
As, lightly, they into the saddle sprang,
Out of a purple-dark dense cloud that slept
Wakefully now along the horizon's rim
Under the flaming sun in the deep west,
There came a roll of thunder to their ears,
Remote, and mellow with remoteness, rich
Bass music in long rumbling monotone;
They listened with delight to hear the sound.

Then Sergius, as the vibration died
In low delicious tremble from their sense,
Said, coupling this with that in Saul's discourse,
Fresh, or remembered from the days before:
"That thunder and this mountain bring to me,
Imagined, the wild scene on Sinai
When your lawgiver gave his laws to you.
He schemed it well to have a thunder-storm
Chime in and be a brave accompaniment
To enforce his ordinances upon the awe
Of the unthinking timorous multitude.
Popular leaders and lawgivers have
Always and everywhere their tricks of trade,
To impress, hoodwink, and wheedle vulgar minds.
Our Sabine Numa, he Pompilius named,
Had his mysterious nymph Egeria
To bring him statutes for all men to heed;
And that Lycurgus got an oracle
From famous Delphi to approve his laws,
Which having sworn his Spartans to observe
At least till he returned from whither he went
Abroad, he, after, masked in such disguise
That never thence to have returned he seemed.
The herd of men still love to be cajoled,
Trolled hither and thither about with baited lies;
Frighten them now with brandished empty threat,
And now with laud as empty tickle them.
Augustus taught the art to tyrannize
Through forms of ancient freedom false and vain,
The stale trick since of all our emperors.
Your Hebrew Moses in his rude grand way
Well plied his shifts of lead and government."

Thunder, a rising mutter, broke again,
And Sergius in his saddle turned to look;
But Saul, with forward face intent, replied:
"Nay, but our Moses thou dost misconceive.
All was to lose and naught to gain for him
Then when he left the ease, the pomp, the power,
Of Pharaoh's court—of Pharaoh's daughter son
Esteemed, and to imperial futures heir—
This left, and loth his brethren led, slaves they,
Out of the realm of Egypt to the sea—
For such a multitude impassable,
Yet passed, through mighty miracle, by all—
Beyond the sea, into that wilderness
Led them, where neither food nor water was,
Yet food found they, and water, in the waste,
Full forty years of error till they came
Next to a land set thick with bristling spears
Against them—though land promised them for theirs—
And land that Moses never was to see,
Save as afar in prospect from the mount,
Because unworthy judged to enter there,
Who unadviséd words in haste let slip,
Unworthy judged, and meekly by himself
Recorded judged unworthy—such a man,
To such a people, so long led by him,
Through such straits of extremity, not once
Spake words to humor or to flatter them;
Thwarted them rather, balked them of their wish,
Upbraided, blamed, rebuked, and punished them,
Each art of selfish demagogue eschewed.
To rule and leadership like his, nowhere
Wilt thou find precedent or parallel;
One key alone unlocks the mystery—God!"

At that last word from Saul, like answer, came
A deep-mouthed boom of thunder from the west,
After a sword of lightning sudden drawn
Then sheathed within the scabbard of the cloud,
Which now, spread wide, had blotted out the sun.
A vagrant breath of tempest shook the trees,
And the scared birds flew homeward to their nests.
Sergius remarked the stir of elements
Uneasily the more that he alone
Remarked it, Saul, involved in his own thought,
Seeming unconscious of the outward world.
The Roman, groping in his secret mind
Vainly to find support of sympathy,
Faltered to feel himself thus fronted sole
With danger he could neither ward nor shun,
In presence yet forbidding sign of fear.

In this distress he buoyed himself with words,
Cheer seeking in the sound of his own voice:
"A merry place that in Lucretius
Where this bold poet rallies Jupiter—
The whole Olympian crew, Jupiter most—
In such a rattling vein of pleasantry,
On his plenipotence with thunderbolts!
Lucretius, thou shouldst know, interpreter
Of Epicurus is to Roman minds;
From whom we moderns learn the truth of things
And generation of the universe.
'If Jupiter,' Lucretius sings and says,
'If Jupiter it be, and other gods,
'That with terrific sound the temple shake,
'Shake the resplendent temple of the skies,
'And launch the lightning whither each one wills,
'Why is it that the strokes transfix not those
'Guilty of some abominable crime,
'As these within their breast the flames inhale,
'Instruction sharp to mortals—why not this,
'Rather than that the man of no base thing
'To himself conscious should be wrapt about
'Innocent in the flames, and suddenly
'With whirlwind and with fire from heaven consumed?
'Also, why seek they out, the gods, for work
'Like this, deserted spots, and waste their pains?
'Or haply do they then just exercise
'Their muscles, that thereby their arms be strong?'"

Sergius so far, from his Lucretius,
When the cloud, cloven, let out an arrowy flash,
And, following soon, a muffled muttering threat
Prolonged, that ended in a ragged roar—
As if, with angry rupture, violent hands
Atwain had torn the fabric of the sky.
A shuddering pause, but again Sergius,
Flying his poet's gibes at Jupiter:
"'Why never from a sky clear everywhere
'Does Jupiter upon the lands hurl down
'His thunderbolts, and thunder-booms outpour?
'Or, when the clouds have come, does he descend
'Then into them that nigh at hand he thence
'The striking of his weapon may direct?'"

One sheet of flame the bending welkin wrapt,
And a broadside of thunder roared amain.
With mortal strife against a mortal fear,
Hidden, the Roman struggled, not in vain—
As, faltering yet from his feigned gayety,
He, in a forced voice almost grim, went on
With that Lucretian blasphemy of Jove:
"'Why lofty places seeks out Jupiter,
'And why most numerous vestiges find we
'Traced of his fires on lonely mountain-tops?'"

No farther—flash on flash and crash on crash,
Chaos of light and universe of sound!—
For the wind roared a tumult like the sea
Which the gulfs filled between the thunder-peals.

One mighty blast, frantic as battle-charge
When, mad with last despair, ten thousand horse
Headlong into the hell at cannon-mouth
Plunge—such a blast rushed down the rent ravine
Whereby, along a shaggy side, the twain,
Now nigh the utmost mountain summit, climbed.
The glacial air, as in a torrent rolled
Precipitous or vertical sheer down
Some dizzy height in cataract, so swift!
Unhorsed them both; but, crouching, man and steed,
With one wise instinct instantly to all,
Which equalled all—supreme desire of life—
They huddling crept transverse to where a rock
On their right hand lifted its moveless brow
And, safely founded in the mountain's base,
Made, leaning, an impendent roof which now
Proffered a dreadful shelter from the storm.

Hardly this refuge gained, the tempest, loosed,
Hailstones and coals of fire commingled, fell.
The wind, with such a weight oppressed, went down,
And, with the sinking wind, a water-spout,
Whirled roaring in its spiral from on high,
Those watchers saw peel off, with one steep swoop
Descending, a whole mountain-top and roll
Its shattered forest into the ravine
Suddenly thus with foaming torrent filled.
Therewith, as weary were the storm, a lull;
Lull only, for the welkin seemed to sink
Collapsed about them, and what was the sky
Became the nether atmosphere on fire,
Enrobing them with lightning fold on fold
And thunder detonating at their ears.

Sergius, ere shut had seared his eyes the glare,
Saw a gigantic cedar nigh at hand,
Under a flaming wedge of thunderbolt,
Riven in parted halves from head to foot,
Fall burning down the frightful precipice.
Spite of himself, his terror turned to prayer:
"O Jupiter," he said, "it was not meant,
What I spoke late against thy majesty!
Spare me yet this once more, and I a vow,
A pledged rich vow, will in thy temple hang,
Then when I first shall safe reach Rome, inscribed
'From Sergius Paulus to King Jupiter,
Lord of the lightning and the thunderbolt.'"

"'Give ye unto Jehovah,'" so at last,
Fragments of psalm responsive to the storm—
As in antiphony of worship joined,
He and the elements!—chanting, Saul burst forth,
At intervals, between the swells of sound,
And varying to the tempest's varying phase,
"'Give ye unto Jehovah, lo, all ye
'Sons of the mighty, to Jehovah give
'Glory and strength; unto Jehovah give
'The equal glory due unto His name;
'Worship Jehovah in fair robes of praise!'"

"'Deep calleth unto deep at the dread noise
'Made by Thy waterspouts. The earth, it shook
'And trembled; the foundations of the hills
'Moved and were shaken for that He was wroth.
'The heavens moreover bowed He, and came down,
'He His pavilion round about Him made
'Dark waters and the thick clouds of the skies.
"'Jehovah also thundered in the heavens,
'And therein the Most High gave forth His voice,
'Hailstones and coals of fire!
"'Jehovah's voice
'In power!
"'Jehovah's voice in majesty!

"'Jehovah's voice is on the waters! God,
'The God of glory thunders!
"'Lo, His voice,
'Jehovah's voice, the mighty cedar breaks,
'Jehovah's voice divides the flames of fire!

"'Praise ye Jehovah, heavens of heavens, and ye
'Waters that be above the heavens, Him praise!
'Praise ye Jehovah, from the earth beneath,
'Thou fire, thou hail, thou snow, and vapors ye,
'Thou, stormy wind that dost fulfil His word!'"

So Saul, in dialogue with the elements,
That heard him, and responded voice for voice.
Sublimity into sublimity
Other, immeasurable heights more high,
Was lifted and transformed, the terror gone,
Gone or exalted to ennobling awe—
In converse such, God, with His image man!
The thunder, and the lightning, and the hail
Falling in power, the pomp of moving clouds,
The sound of torrent and of cataract,
The multitudinous orchestra of winds—
Trumpet and pipe, resounding cymbal loud,
Timbrel and harp, sackbut and psaltery—
The majesty of cedars prostrate strewn
In utmost adoration, the veiled sun,
The kneeling heavens, face downward on the earth,
In act of penitence as found unclean
By the white-burning holiness of God—
All this wild gesture of the elements
And deep convulsion of the frame of things,
Appalling only erst, interpreted
By interjections such from Saul of phrase
Inspired, seemed from confusion and turmoil
Transposed and harmonized to an august
Service and symphony of prayer and praise
And solemn liturgy of the universe.

Sergius was charmed insensibly to peace,
And a calm human voice had subtle power
To soothe to breathing rest the trembling steeds.
And now began the cadence of the storm;
Lifted the sky was from the burdened earth,
The lightnings flashed less imminent, less thick.
The thunder dulled his stroke, retired to far
And farther in the muffling firmament,
The hail ceased falling in a fall of rain,
Through which at last the low descending sun
Smiled in a rainbow on the opposite cloud.
"God's sign," said Saul, "His seal of promise set
Oft on the clouds of heaven when storm is past,
In radiant curve of blended colors fair,
That He with flood no more will drown the world."

Therewith they got them to their path again,
And, forward hastening, on the farther slope
Of Hermon overpassed, were met by some
Returning of their escort companies
Who sought their laggard masters left behind.
These had crossed earlier, and, before the storm,
Housed them in covert, where all now with joy
Welcomed their chiefs from threatened scath escaped.
They slept that night beneath a starry sky
Fair as if wrinkled never by a frown;
To-morrow they would see that paradise,
Renowned Damascus, pearl of all the East.
This their sleep filled with dream of things to be,
Until the morning breaking radiant made
The desert seem to blossom as the rose
Wherein Damascus sat an oasis.

BOOK XV.

SAUL AND JESUS.

The scene of the poem changes, being transferred to Paradise. Here a group composed of those who had come to their death by the hands of Saul assemble, privileged by special grace to witness from their celestial station the happy overthrow and conversion of their late persecutor. Sergius applies his interpretation of the occurrence, and Saul finishes his journey on foot, blind, led by the hand into Damascus.

SAUL AND JESUS.

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!

Watched they meanwhile that cloud of glory go
Darkened wherein the Lord of light was hid.
Incredibly though swift its far descent,
Yet answerably swift their vision was,
As swift likewise the motion of their mind;
And so they plainly saw how, by degrees,
What shadow was, in the celestial sphere,
Became a growing brightness as it went,
Until, within the bounds of sunshine come,
That mild beclouded glory, still unchanged,
Paled with its bright the brilliance of the sun.
Hardly those watchers dare keep looking, pierced
With a redeemed fine sympathy for Saul,
And marvelling, "Such light can he bear and live?"

To Saul himself no interval there seemed;
Instant, with his anathema, down smote
That awful light on him, and straight to earth
Prostrate as dead he fell, yet heard a Voice,
Awful not less, speak twice his name, "Saul, Saul,"
And, "Wherefore dost thou persecute Me?" ask.
Then further these deep searching words to him:
"Hard findst it thou to kick against the pricks!"
"Who art Thou, Lord?" came trembling forth from Saul,
Whereby their brother yet alive those knew.
"Jesus I am, Jesus of Nazareth,
The crucified, whom thou dost persecute,"
They heard Messiah say, and thrilled with joy
Of gratitude to feel afresh that He
Suffered when any suffered for His sake,
And bled in wounds that made His brethren bleed,
Joining Himself to them, by fellowship
Of passion, they in Him and He in them,
The living members with the living Head
Mysteriously incorporate in one.
Thus a sweet thrill of grateful love to Him,
Their Saviour, trembled in those heavenly breasts,
While in suspense of balanced hope and fear—
The fear but such as made the hope more bliss—
They waited what their brother next would say.

But in the prostrate man, at such reply,
Felt from amidst that imminent light descend,
"I Jesus am whom thou dost persecute,"
Thought following thought, a fleet succession, flew
The boundless blank astonishment was brief
Which, as with wing world-wide of hurricane,
Shadowy, his mind bewildering overswept.
'Such power of splendor his, the Nazarene's!
Jesus had launched that thunderbolt of light!
The Lord of Glory then the crucified!'
The momentary hurricane was past,
But passing it had overturned the world.

Saul vividly saw Stephen as that day
He shone Shekinah in the temple court
Effulgent with a milder light like this;
'And this was that which Stephen prophesied!
How madly had he kicked against the pricks!'
Next, Stephen martyr stood before his eyes
Uplifting holy hands to heaven in prayer,
On poise for that translation to his Lord
Wherein his, Saul's, the murderer's part had been!
And Rachel flashed in vision on his mind,
Pathetically beautiful, once more,
As on that moonlit eve at Bethany!
The sisters there, and Lazarus—with Ruth
Exalted in her mother-majesty!
Hirani, then, in his simplicity
Perplexed before the Sanhedrim, but borne
In ecstasy above them far away,
Thence looking down upon them all, a light
Fair on his forehead like the light of stars;
All these things in his past, with many more—
Instant, at sudden summons of his mind,
To swear against him his own blasphemy—
Shot through Saul's spirit, as the lightning leaps,
Rapid, one leap, from end to end of heaven.
'This dreadful splendor was not vengeance all,
It had not slain him, he was thinking still!
A grace was in the glory, oh, how fair!'
The features of a Face began to dawn
Upon him in the darkness of that light;
As the sun shineth in his strength, it shone,
An awful Meekness mild with Majesty!

The outward light light to his soul became—
A light of knowledge of the glory of God
To Saul, seen in the face of Jesus Christ!
'It would be freedom to serve such a Lord!'
The passion of rebellion all was gone,
A passion of obedience in its place;
The will that hated had dissolved away,
And will no more was left, but only love.
This love which was obedience spoke and asked,
"Lord Jesus, what wilt thou have me to do?"

The Brightness of the Father's Glory said:
"Rise thou, and stand upon thy feet, for I
Have to this end appeared to thee, to make
Thee minister and witness both of what
This day thou hast beheld and of those things
Wherein I after will appear to thee,
Delivering thee from Jewish enemies
And from the Gentiles unto whom I now
Send thee, their eyes to unseal and them to turn
From darkness unto light, and from the power
Of Satan unto God, that they of sins
Forgiveness may receive, and heirs become
Among those sanctified through faith in Me."

Saul heard, and in his heart of hearts obeyed;
And his whole life thenceforth obedience was—
Whereof the greater song remains to sing,
If so be God vouchsafe such grace to me.

But Jesus to His servant further said,
"Hence now into Damascus city go;
There fully shall be shown thee all thy way."

A way indeed stain-traced in blood and tears,
As Saul foresaw to Rachel; but in tears
And blood his own thereafter to the end,
Even to the end of that apostleship.

Yet glorious end! Already then afar
Will kindle the dark earth with many a ray,
Never to be extinguished, of heaven's light
Caught from the torch that this world-wandering man,
This flying angel fledged with wingéd feet
Tireless, this heart of love unquenchable,
Has borne abroad, when, now the good fight fought,
Finished his course, the faith full kept, he, last,
With aged eagle eyes strained forward, sees
The crown of righteousness laid up for him
Which Christ, the Righteous Judge, will give him then,
Give him in that forever-imminent Day—
Nor him alone, as his vicarious soul
Swells to remember, but all them likewise
Who shall have loved the appearing of the Lord.

The transit of a thought athwart the brain—
What computation for such speed in flight!
What reckoning of the number of the thoughts
That in an individual instant will
Chase one another through a human mind
In never-sundered continuity
Of change! The measureless diameters
Of being that a mortal man may cross
From one pulse to another of the blood!
How, in the twinkling of an eye, become
The spirit its own polar opposite!
Between his Lord's reply, "I Jesus am,"
And his own further question instant asked,
"Lord Jesus, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
That prostrate proud young Hebrew penitent
The utmost stretch of longitude traversed
That can divide two different selves in man—
He from rebellious to obedient passed,
Blasphemer was adoring worshipper,
The Pharisee was Christian, Saul was Paul.

At witness of the wondrous change, the joy,
The grateful joy, within those friendly minds
Above who saw it, borne to ecstasy
Of gladness, was triumphal, and broke forth
In singing such as heard in Paradise:
"Glory to God, and to our Saviour Lord,
For one more captive to the heavenly thrall;
For one more human soul to heaven reclaimed
From hell, and star set in Christ's diadem!
For one more witness, an apostle new,
Like angel flying through mid-heaven, to fly
And wing the Gospel wide throughout the world!
Thanks to thee, Christ, for that his name is Saul!"

Heard was this quiring song afar, and heaven
Her other joy suspended at the sound:
And every echoing hill of Paradise,
Each grove, each grotto, every fountain-side,
With every bank of river, every glen,
And every bowery, flowery wide champaign
Where angels bask in bliss, took up the strain
And rang it swelling to the highest heaven;
While harpers harped it to their harps, and palms
Were rhythmic waved in music to the eye,
And the trees clapped their hands, and God was pleased.

So they in Paradise, who saw and heard
Truly; Saul's fellow-pilgrims nigh at hand
Vacantly wondered, who, though they the light
Beheld, and heard the voice speak, missed the sense.
Sergius, recovered from his first surprise
And terror, mused within himself, and found,
Remembering words from Saul against the gods,
Easy solution of the mystery;
'Pan roared at him from out the copse-wood nigh,
With wholesome punishment of fear infused
Avenging his despised divinity;
While lord Apollo twanged his silver bow
And shot at him a shaft of blinding light;
The gods of right are wroth to be reviled!'

Saul from the ground arose a sightless man;
The glory that not slew had blinded him.
His steed he would not mount again to ride,
But chose, humbly, and guided by the hand,
Footing to go among his followers.
Who, that blithe morning, as the morning blithe,
Forth for Damascus from Jerusalem
Rode breathing threat and slaughter quenchless sworn
Against the church of Jesus Nazarene,
Entered the city walking, led and blind,
Bondslave thenceforth to the One Worthy Name.

THE END.

About This Book

BOOK XIV.

FOR DAMASCUS.

FOR DAMASCUS.

BOOK XV.

SAUL AND JESUS.

SAUL AND JESUS.