BOOK X.
RE-EMBARKED.
Arrived at Myra on their way toward Rome, Paul and his companions are transferred to a different vessel to pursue their voyage. The new vessel is from Alexandria: it brings thence as passengers for Rome two mutual friends, one of them a Roman, the other a Buddhist from India named Krishna. Rachel, having seen Paul and the Roman greet each other as old acquaintances, soon inquires apart of Paul who the Roman is, and, learning is thence drawn on into exchange of reminiscence and reflection with her brother. The two at length unite in interceding with Julius on behalf of Shimei. They secure for him the freedom of the deck.
RE-EMBARKED.
Where on the towering shore a mighty gorge Breaks headlong through the mountains to the sea, And a deep stream into a haven large Spreads for the welcome of all ships that sail The Mediterranean ocean, there of old Myra, metropolis of Lycia, sat; Mart once of many meeting nations--now A few colossal shadows sign and say Mutely, 'Here Myra was, and she was great!'
At Myra safe arrived and anchor cast, That Adramyttian vessel disembarked Her voyagers bound to Rome, and went her way. When she at Cæsarea touching found That Jewish prisoner there and bore him thence, She had suddenly gone sailing unaware, In transit as of star athwart the sun, Into the solar light of history; At Myra parting with him she passed on Into the rim of dark and disappeared: A moment in a light she guessed not of Illuminated for all time to see, Then heedless dipping deep her plunging keel And foundering in the gulfs of the unknown!
A bark of Egypt seeking Italy, Wheat-laden of the fatness of the Nile, Swung resting in the Myra roadstead nigh. Hereon were re-embarked that company, Paul, and the friends that sailed with Paul to Rome-- Fallen Felix too, with his wife spurring him To hope yet and to strive and still be strong. Alexandreia sent the vessel forth, City twice famous, joining to her own The august tradition of her founder's fame, The mighty Macedonian's mightier son, Great Alexander who the whole world gained Indeed--with what for profit of it all? At this sea-gate wide opening to the West, From all the East men met and hence dispersed-- That current laden most which drew to Rome. Besides from Egypt her hierophants, Hence thither flocked those worshippers of fire From Persia holding Zoroaster sage, Astrologers of Assyria, and from Ind Confessors of the somber faith of Buddh.
Of many such as these on board that bark One Indian Buddhist votary there was Worthy of note: a gentle-mannered man Deep in himself involved, as who mused much Of hidden things and hard to understand, The pathos of the mystery of the world, The human strife, with the defeat foregone Companioning the strife and ending it-- Yet ending not a strife that could not end, But ever, round and round, one dull defeat, Trod the treadmill of fate, no hope, no goal. A gentle-mannered man, but sad of cheer, Krishna his name, pilgrim of many climes, Not idly curious to behold and learn, But hiding pity in his heart for men Seen everywhere the same, poor blinded moles Toiling and moiling in the sunless mines Of being, where no joy, whence no escape. Escape none, or, if any, then escape Impossible to win except by slow, And unimaginably slow, process Of suicide to endless date prolonged, Æons on æons following numberless, And fatal transmigrations of the soul From state to state, from form to form, of self: Yet progress none that might be felt the while, But one long-drawn monotony instead Of labor waste in movement seeming vain, Cycles of change returning on themselves Forever, bound to orbits that revolve Eternal repetitions of the same Vicissitude (the weaver's shuttle flung Tediously back and forth from hand to hand-- Or swinging pendulum), 'twixt death and birth, Lapses from misery to misery Always, prospect like retrospect stretched out To vista and perspective vanishing Of path to be pursued and still pursued By the undaunted seeker of an end-- He by his own act dying all the time In ceaseless effort utterly to cease, Will willing not to will, desire desiring To be desire no more, pure apathy, No hope, no fear, no motion of the mind, Until, through dull disuse and atrophy, Extinguished be capacity itself To do or suffer anything, and so, Down sinking through the bottomless abyss Of being, at last the fugitive go free, Emancipate but by becoming--naught! Krishna thus deeming of his fellow-men, Their present and their future and their fate, Hid a vast pity in his heart for them, Pity the vaster that he could not help.
This melancholy man compassionate, Who might in musing to himself seem lost, Yet saw and heard with vigilant quick sense Whatever passed about him where he stood, Or where he sat--for most he moveless sat, Moveless and silent, on the swarming deck. One man indeed he spake with, yet with him His speech, grave ever, he spared, and sheathed in tones Soothingly soft and low like blandishment. That one man was a Roman; Roman less To seeming than cosmopolite--his air An air of long-accustomed conversance With whatsoever might be seen and learned Through much Ulyssean wandering to and fro And up and down among his fellow-men, And watching of their works and words and ways. This Roman citizen of the world, mailed proof In habit of a full-experienced mind Against commotion from surprise, was now Visibly moved to wonder seeing Paul. His wonder checked with reverence and with love Indignant to behold the captive state Of one deserving rather wreath than bond, He stepped toward Paul and with such homage paid As liege to lord might pay saluted him. "Grace unto thee, my brother," answered Paul, "From the Lord Jesus Christ, thy Lord and mine!" They twain fell on each other's neck and kissed With tears. Such salutation and embrace-- No more; but this with variant mood was marked By three that saw it. The centurion Blent in his look pleasure with his surprise; But Felix and Drusilla frowned askance (They also knowing the Roman, as at court Courtiers know one another--without love); Those frowned askance, and mixed their mutual eyes In sinister exchange of look malign Portending sequel if the chance should serve; And in Neronian Rome the happy chance Of mischief, but be patient, scarce could fail!
That gentle Indian with his pregnant eye Saw all and mused it--then, and after, long-- The cheerful, joyful, reverent greeting given A Jewish prisoner by a Roman lord And by the Jewish prisoner so returned In unaccustomed words ill understood But solemn like the language of a spell; This, with the Roman captain's look benign Approving what surprised him yet; nor less, The menace of the mutual scowls that met Darkening each other on the alien brows Of Felix and Drusilla at the sight-- Most like two clouds that, black already, blown Together, shadow into a deeper dark!
In due time, anchor weighed with choral sound Of sailors' voices cheering each himself And each his fellow in a formless tune, The ship from out the haven slowly slid, Urged with the oar but wooing too the wind With slack sail doubtful drooping by the mast. Large planes of lucid ocean tranced in calm They traversed with loth labor of the oar, Or else were buffeted of winds that blew Thwart or full opposite day after day, While they hugged close the Asian shore, then Rhodes Saw southward, mooring fair her fruitful isle. The leisures long-drawn-out of those delays, To Paul and to his friends were prize and spoil. Grown wonted to the sway of wind and wave, They spent, cradled at grateful ease, the slow, Soft-lapsing, indistinguishable hours That wore the sunny summer season out, In various converse or communion sweet Oft with mere sense of mutual nearness nursed.
"Who was that kindly courteous gentleman," Thus at fit moment Rachel asked of Paul, "That spoke so fair my brother coming up? Roman he seemed, and lordly was his air; Yet something other, sweeter, differenced him From his compatriot peers, and I observed Thou gavest him thy grace from Christ the Lord."
"That, Rachel," Paul replied, "was one I knew-- Almost mightst thou have known him--long ago In Tarsus; we were boys together there. But since then twice, with now this added time, Has God in wisdom made our pathways meet. That Roman to Damascus went with me And saw, what time the glory of the Lord Blinded me to behold at last the True. But him that glory, seen not suffered, left For outward vision what he was before, While inwardly with denser darkness blind, Reclaimed from atheism to idolatry! But God had mercy on him; years went by, And I, with Barnabas to Cyprus come, Found there this selfsame Roman, governor. The skeptic whom theophany had made Religious not, but superstitious, now Led captive of delusion--worldly-wise Albeit he was, yet unto God a fool!-- Was given up wholly dupe and devotee Of a deceiver, Jew, Bar-jesus named, Pretender to the gift of prophecy. This sorcerer dared withstand us to the face Before the governor, who had summoned us (Not dreaming whom he summoned summoning me) To tell him of the word of God. But I, Filled with the Spirit of the Lord--mine eyes On him, that sorcerer, fastened--uttered words Which God the Faithful followed with such blast And blight of blindness on the wretched man That he groped seeking who would lead him thence. The governor beheld and wonder-struck To see God's work God's word at last believed. The pagan playmate of my boyhood so Became the changed soul thou hast seen him here, In Jesus brother, loving and beloved; And Sergius Paulus thou his name mayst call."
"O Saul," said Rachel, "in what history Of marvel following marvel has thy life, Since when that noon Christ met thee in thy way Damascus-ward, been portioned out to thee! The stories of the prophets old whom God Wrought through to show His people how behind The thick veil of His outward handiwork He Himself lived and was a present God-- Those tales of wonders, let me own it, Saul, Had grown to me to seem so far away From our time, and so alien from the things We with our eyes behold, hear with our ears, Much more, with these our hands perform, that I Almost had fallen, not into disbelief (Not that, ever, I trust--nay, God forbid!) Concerning them, but into a listless mind Which to itself no image of them framed-- Fault well-nigh worse than outright disbelief! That now the things themselves, nay, things more strange, Should be by God repeated in the world, Nor only so, that one of mine own blood, My brother, should a chosen vessel be Of this great grace of God through Christ to men-- This less with wonder than with awe fills me, And I--believe not, faith were name too faint For passion such as mine is--I adore!"
Paul bent on Rachel eyes unutterable Wherein a sense of sympathy serene Betwixt himself and her he talked with, shone, And they twain dwelt in a suspense supreme, Silent, of adoration where they stood-- The rapture of doxology unbreathed To either doubled as by other shared. At length Paul spoke; his tones intense and low Thrilled through the ear of Rachel to her heart: "O Rachel, He who out of darkness once Bade the light shine, God, shined into our hearts Enkindling there this dayspring from on high, This light of knowing from the face of Christ The glory inexpressible of God!"
A pause once more of rapt communion; then This added in a chastened other strain: "But we such treasure have in urns of clay Fragile and nothing worth that all in all The exceeding greatness of the power may be Not of ourselves but ever only God's! Constrained I find myself in every way, But straitened not; perplexed, but not dismayed; Hunted, but not forsaken; smitten down, But not destroyed; forever bearing round Within the body wheresoever driven The dying of the Lord, that the Lord's life May also in my body forth be shown. Therefore I faint not; let my outward man Fail, if it must, my inward man meantime Is day by day in fadeless youth renewed. How light affliction sits upon my heart! It is but for a moment, and it works The while for me an ever-growing weight Of glory fixed forever to be mine! I look no longer on the things about Me, seeming to be real, since they are seen, But far away instead, far, far away Beyond these, at the things that are not seen. These for a season, Rachel, the things seen! But those, the things not seen, eternal they!
"When I saw Stephen upward into heaven Gaze, and behold there what no eye might see, The glory of the Ever-living God, And Jesus standing by His Father's side; When afterward I saw Hirani stand Before the anger of the Sanhedrim, His eyes not seeing what their faces looked, His ears not hearing what the voices round Were saying and forswearing to his harm, But steadfastly his vision fixed afar And all his hearkening bent for sounds unheard, Sights, sounds, sent couriers from the world to come, The real world, the eternal, and the blest-- How little knew I then what now I know! O Rachel, why was I not then disturbed With doubts and fears, and guesses of the true? The darkness of that hour before the dawn! The brightness of this full-accomplished day! The glory of that other day that waits! The Jacob's ladder and the shining rounds! The moving pomps of angels up and down Ascending and descending the degrees Betwixt the heights of heavenly and my feet!
"Now unto Him that in such darkness died, But rose amid such brightness from the tomb And reascended where He was before To glory inaccessible with God, And there expects until He thither bring Us also both to witness and to share His exaltation to the almighty throne-- To our Lord Christ, Redeemer by His blood, Worthy, and only worthy, to receive Ascription without measure of men's praise, Be honor, worship, thanks, obedience, paid, And love, even love like His, forevermore!"
Rachel had barely to her brother's words Breathed fervently her low amen, when he, The passion of doxology unspent Yet quivering in his tones, went on and said: "But, Rachel, all amid this strain of joy Exulting like a fountain in my heart-- Unspeakable and full of glory indeed, As Peter matched it with his mighty phrase!-- Yea, in it, as if of it and the same, I feel a sense of pathos and of pain And hint of earthly with the heavenly mixed. I cannot but of Shimei think, and grieve-- The grief indeed a paradox of joy, Such pity and such anguish of desire To help and save! Can we not succor him? Can we not have him forth of his duress In dungeon into this fair light of day? I feel it must be possible. Pray thou, And I will pray, and haply God may touch The heart of Julius to such act of grace That at our suit and intercession he Will bid the wretched bondman up again Out of the noisome darkness where he pines, If to full freedom not, at least to breathe The freshness of the unpolluted air And feel the force of the reviving sun. Sick he may be, in prison is, we know, And neighbor let us count him, taught of Christ To hold for neighbor any who in need Is nigh enough to us for us to help. Sick and in prison Jesus we might find In Shimei, if for Jesus' sake we go And carry him the solaces of love!"
"But he, will he receive what we should bring?" Said Rachel; "would not bitter-making thought Welling up in him like a secret spring Of brackish issue gushing from beneath A crystal runlet pure as Siloa's brook, Turn for him all our sweetness into gall?"
"Perhaps, perhaps," said Paul; "we cannot know. That were for thee and me defeat indeed-- To be of evil overcome! But, nay, Nay, Rachel, let us hope, and overcome Evil with good. What is impossible? Is this, even this, impossible--through Christ? Love, if love perfect be, hopeth all things. There is in love, as John delights to say, No fear; for perfect love casteth out fear. Perfect our love, be faithless outcast fear No counsellor of ours; but hope instead Far-seeing, with her forward-looking eyes Reflecting hither light from that beyond. Hope maketh not ashamed, because the love Of God is poured forth in our hearts a stream, An overflowing, like the river of God, Fed from the fulness of the Holy Ghost! O, how omnipotent I feel in him! But, behold, Julius! Let me speak straightway!"
"O thou, my keeper"--so to Julius Paul-- "Full courteous to thy prisoner often proved, Nay, more than courteous, kind--beseech thee now Beyond thy wont be courteously kind!" "What wilt thou, then?" said Julius. "Grant it me," Paul answered, "to reprieve, from chains, I ask not, But from his dungeon doom, to see the sun And breathe this vital air, the wretched man Whom, partly for my sake perhaps, thou keepest Immured in dismal dark duress below!"
"Strange being thou!" said Julius answering Paul, Yet answering not, with wonder overpowered. "That wretch, that miscreant, craven, liar, proved Corrupter of the faith of men through bribe-- Nay, but assassin, only that he failed, Assassin disappointed in attempt-- On whose life but thine own?--such man accurst Do I now hear thee interceding for, Thee, prisoner thyself, and that--unless The story of his plot and traitorhood And band of forty sworn conspirators Against thee at Jerusalem, have been Falsely told me--aye, _that_ solely through him! I wonder at thee! Art thou mad? The day Thy countryman confronted by thee quailed, Convicted of his dastard perjury Which aimed to make _thee_ murderer of _him_-- Then, Paul, I thought thee sane enough, as thou With words launched like the thunderbolts of Jove Didst rive him to his rotten innermost! Yet then, even then, relenting strangely, thou Didst melt the hardness that became thee so-- Making thee almost Roman, as I thought-- Melt it into a softness like a woman's. And now again from thee this wanton whim And suit of pity for that damnable! I cannot make thee out--unless it be Thou art moonstruck, and maudlin-mindedness At times seize thee betraying thy manhood thus!"
Paul did not answer the centurion's words With words again; instead--with look serene, Ascendant, irresistible--received, Absorbed, and overbore that other's look (Which, after the words spoken, rested on Paul's face in pity that was almost scorn) Quenching it as a shield a fiery dart; Till Julius, fain to yield yet somewhat save His pride in yielding, turned from Paul and said To Rachel, as in condescension dashed With banter: "Let thy sister if she will Go carry Shimei tidings of reprieve; A sister to a brother's murderer go And take him token of her love--and his!" A little softening, as he spoke, from sneer, At the sheer aspect of her loveliness, An aspect not of weakness, but wherein There mingled, with the lovely woman's charm, Something august of saintly matronhood, Remote from any hint of what could seem Defect of sane and saving self-control-- Thus wrought upon a little while he spoke, Julius to Rachel turning spoke such words.
"All thanks," she gently said, "thou art most kind. It shall be as thou sayest, for I will go." She turned, but hung in action, as through doubt; With artless art of hesitation sweet Beyond persuasion eloquent, she said: "Yea, thou art good, and gladly will I go, But I--I am a woman--were it meet?-- If thou declarest it meet, then it shall be, And thither will I venture down alone; For God will round me globe an angel guard To treasure me from peril and from soil."
Her grace, but more her graciousness, prevailed; For won upon by her demeanor meek, Majestic, and that awe of womanhood Instinctive in a noble breast of man, The Roman, with even a flush of shame at last Not altogether hidden as he turned His bronzéd cheek away, spoke out aloud: "Varenus!" so he called the soldier's name Whose turn it was that watch to sentry Paul-- The same that Shimei late had sought to bribe-- "Go bid up Shimei hither from the hold!"
Haggard, dejected, squalid from the filth And fetor of his dungeon, in surprise With terror, doubting what awaited him-- Dazed in the sudden light his blinking eyes-- The more bewildered that he could not frame With any true and steady sight to see Color, or shape, of person or of thing Before him or about him anywhere, Shimei stepped halt and staggering on the deck. A spectacle for pity to abhor, And for abhorrence shuddering to behold With pity--wreck and remnant of a man! The soldier would not touch to steady him, But let him shuffle as he might his way. Scarce more than one or two uncertain steps, And Shimei insecure of standing stood, Shaken in all the fabric of the man-- Like some decrepit crazy edifice Wind-shaken trembling on the point to fall.
Paul saw, and felt his heart within him moved. To the unmoved centurion thus he spoke: "Wilt thou not let him rest awhile retired Apart a little till his force revive And his eyes grow rewonted to the light?" "Have thou thy will with him," the Roman said, "So far as of his chains to ease him not. Thou art right perhaps; a little added strength Were well, were timely, in his present plight-- May save him over to added punishment. So nurse him fair, ye brotherhood," said he, "And sisterhood, of mercy ill-bestowed!" And round the Roman glanced, with Roman scorn Masking some sense of admiration shamed, Upon the group of ready hearts and hands, The circle of Paul's fellowship in faith, Now gathered nigh with looks of wish to help.