Читать книгу The Epic of Saul - William Cleaver Wilkinson - Страница 12

Like a wise soldier on some task intent

Of moment and of hazard, who, at heart

Secure of prospering, yet no caution counts,

No pains, unworthy, but with wary feet

Explores his ground about him every rood,

All elements of chance forecalculates,

Draws to his part each doubtful circumstance;

Never too much provided, point by point

Equips himself superfluously strong,

That he prevailing may with might prevail,

And overcome with bounteous victory;

So Saul, firm in resolve and confident,

And inly stung with conscience and with zeal

Not to postpone his weighty work proposed,

Would not be hasty found, nor rash, to fail

Of any circumspection that his sure

Triumph might make more sure, or wider stretch

Its margin, certain to be wide.

Some days

After the council, he, with forecast sage

And prudence to prepare, refrained himself

From word or deed in public; while, at home,

Not moody, but not genial as his use,

His gracious use, was, self-absorbed, retired

In deep and absent muse, he nigh might seem

A stranger to his sister well-beloved,

Wont to be sharer of his inmost mind.

Inmost, save one reserve. He never yet

Had shown to any, scarce himself had seen,

The true deep master motive of his soul,

That fountain darkling in the depths of self

Whence into light all streams of being flowed.

Saul daily, nightly, waking, sleeping, dreamed

Of a new nation, his belovéd own,

Resurgent from the dust consummate fair,

And, for chief corner-stone, with shoutings reared

To station in the stately edifice—

Whom but himself? Who worthier than Saul?

This beckoning image bright of things to be—

Audacious-lovelier far than might be shown

To any, yea, than he himself dared look,

With his own eyes, steadfast and frank upon—

Was interblent so closely in his mind

With what should be the fortune and effect

Of his intended controversy nigh,

That, though his settled purpose to dispute

He had for public reasons publicly

Declared, he yet in private, of that strife,

Still future, everywhere to speak abstained,

Abiding even unto his sister dumb.

Rachel from Tarsus to Jerusalem

Had borne her brother company, her heart

One heart with his to cheer him toward the goal

Of his high purpose, which she knew, to be

Beyond his equals master in the law.

Alone they dwelt together, their abode

Between Gamaliel's and the synagogue

Of the Cilicians. Beautiful and bright

His home she made to him, with housewife ways

Neat-handed, and with fair companionship.

The sister, with that quick intelligence

The woman's, first divined, for secret cause

Of this her brother's travailing silentness,

That he some pregnant enterprise revolved;

Then, having, with the woman's wit, found means

To advise herself what enterprise it was,

She, with the woman's tact of sympathy,

In watchful quiet reverent of his mood,

Strove with him and strove for him, in her thought,

Her wish, her hope, her prayer; nor failed sometimes

A word to drop, unconsciously as seemed,

By lucky chance, that might perhaps convey

A timely help of apt suggestion wise

To Saul her brother for his purpose, he

All undisturbed to guess that aught was meant.

At home, abroad, reserved, Saul not the less

All places of men's frequence and resort

Still visited, and mixed with crowds to catch

The whisper of the people; active not,

But not supine, observing unobserved

As if alone amid the multitude.

The brave apostles of the Nazarene

He heard proclaim their master Lord and Christ,

And marked their method in the Scriptures; not

With open mind obedient toward the truth,

But ever only with shut heart and hard,

Intent on knowing how to contradict.

Meanwhile the novel doctrines spread, and found

New converts day by day, and day by day

Proclaimers new. Of these more eminent

Was none than Stephen, flaming prophet he,

Quenchless in spirit, full of faith and power.

Him oft Saul heard, to listening throngs that hung

Upon the herald's lips with eager ear,

The claim of Jesus to Messiahship

Assert, and from the psalms and prophets prove.

In guise a seraph rapt, with love aflame

And all aflame with knowledge, like the bush

That burned with God in Horeb unconsumed,

The fervent pure apostle Stephen stood,

In ardors from celestial altars caught

Kindling to incandescence—stood and forged,

With ringing blow on blow, his argument,

A vivid weapon edged and tempered so,

And in those hands so wielded, that its stroke

No mortal might abide and bide upright.

Stephen is such as Saul erelong will be

Risen from the baptism of the Holy Ghost!

Saul felt the breath of human power that blew

Round Stephen like a morning wind, he felt

The light that lifted and transfigured him

And glorified, that bright auroral ray

Of genius which forever makes the brow

It strikes on from its fountain far in God

Shine like the sunrise-smitten mountain peak—

Saul felt these things in Stephen by his tie

With Stephen in the fellowship of power;

Kindred to kindred answered and rejoiced.

But that in Stephen which was more and higher

Than Stephen at his native most and highest,

The inhabitation of the Holy Ghost—

This, Saul had yet no sense to apprehend.

The Spirit of God, only the Spirit of God

Can know; the natural man to Him is deaf

And blind. Saul, therefore, seeing did not see,

And hearing heard not. But no less his heart,

In seeing and in hearing Stephen speak,

Leapt up with recognition of a peer

In power to be his meet antagonist

And task him to his uttermost to foil.

Beyond Saul's uttermost it was to be,

That task! though this of Stephen not, but God.

Still goaded day by day with such desire

As nobler spirits know, to feel the strain

And wrestle of antagonistic thews

Tempting his might and stirring up his mind,

Saul felt, besides, the motion and ferment

And great dilation of a patriot soul,

Magnanimous, laboring for his country's cause.

He thought the doctrines of the Nazarene

Pernicious to the Jewish commonwealth,

Not less than was his person base, his life

Unseemly, and opprobrious his death.

He saw, or deemed he saw, in what was taught

From Jesus, only deep disparagement

Disloyally implied of everything

Nearest and dearest to the Hebrew heart.

The gospel was high treason in Saul's eyes;

Suppose it but established in success,

The temple then would be no more what erst

It was, the daily sacrifice would cease,

The holy places would with heathen feet

Be trodden and profaned, the middle wall

Of old partition between Jew and Greek

Would topple undermined, the ritual law

Of Moses would be obsolete and void,

Common would be the oracles of God,

To all divulged, peculiar once to Jews—

Of Jewish name and nation what were left?

Such thoughts, that seemed of liberal scope, were Saul's,

Commingled, he not knowing, with some thoughts,

Less noble, of his own aggrandizement.

It came at length to pass that on a day

The spacious temple-court is thronged with those

Come from all quarters to Jerusalem,

Or dwellers of the city, fain to hear

Once more the preacher suddenly so famed.

Present is Saul, but not as heretofore

To hearken only and observe; the hour

Has struck when his own voice he must uplift,

To make it heard abroad.

He dreamed it not,

But Rachel too was there, his sister. She

Had, from sure signs observed, aright surmised

That the ripe time to speak was come to Saul.

In her glad loyalty, she doubted not

That he, that day, would, out of a full mind,

Pressed overfull with affluence from the heart,

Pour forth a stream of generous eloquence—

Stream, nay, slope torrent, steep sheer cataract,

Of reason and of passion intermixed—

For such she proudly felt her brother's power—

Which down should rush upon his adversaries

And carry them away as with a flood,

Astonished, overwhelmed, and whirled afar;

Rescued at least the ruins of the state!

So glorying in her high vicarious hope

For Saul her brother, Rachel came that morn

Betimes and chose her out a safe recess

For easy audience, nigh, and yet retired,

Between the pillars of a stately porch,

Where she might see and not by him be seen.

Thence Rachel watched all eagerly; when now

The multitude, expecting Stephen, saw

A different man stand forth with beckoning hand

As if to speak. The act and attitude

Commanded audience, for a king of men

Stood there, and a great silence fell on all.

Some knew the face of the young Pharisee,

These whispered round his name; Saul's name and fame

To all were known, and, ere the speaker spoke,

Won him a deepening heed.

Rachel the hush

Felt with a secret sympathetic awe,

And for one breath her beating heart stood still;

It leapt again to hear her brother's voice

Pealing out bold in joyous sense of power.

That noble voice, redounding like a surge

Pushed by the tide, on swept before the wind,

And all the ocean shouldering at its back,

Which seeks out every inlet of the shore

To brim it flush and level from the brine—

Such Saul's voice swelled, as from a plenteous sea,

And, wave on wave of pure elastic tone,

Rejoicing ran through every gallery,

And every echoing endless colonnade,

And every far-retreating least recess

Of building round about that temple-court,

And filled the temple-court with silver sound—

As thus, with haughty summons, he began:

"Ye men of Israel, sojourners from far

Or dwellers in Jerusalem, give heed.

The lines are fallen to us in evil times:

Opinions run abroad perverse and strange,

Divergent from the faith our fathers held.

A day is come, brethren, and fallen on us—

On us, this living generation, big

With promise, or with threat, of mighty doom.

Which will ye have it? Threat, or promise, which?

Yours is the choosing—choose ye may, ye must.

"Abolish Moses, if ye will; destroy

The great traditions of your fathers; say

Abraham was naught, naught Isaac, Jacob, all

The patriarchs, heroes, martyrs, prophets, kings;

That Seed of Abraham naught, our nation's Hope,

Foretold to be an universal King;

Make one wide blank and void, an emptied page,

Of all the awful glories of our past—

Deliverance out of Egypt, miracle

On miracle wrought dreadfully for us

Against our foes, path cloven through the sea,

Jehovah in the pillar of cloud and fire,

And host of Pharaoh mightily overthrown;

The law proclaimed on Sinai amid sound

And light insufferable and angels nigh

Attending; manna in the wilderness;

The rock that lived and moved and followed them,

Our fathers, flowing water in the waste—

Obliterate at a stroke whatever sets

The seal of God upon you as His own,

And marks you different from the heathen round—

Shekinah fixed between the cherubim,

The vacant Holy of Holies filled with God,

The morning and the evening sacrifice,

Priest, altar, incense, choral hymn and psalm,

Confused melodious noise of instruments

Together sounding the high praise of God;

All this, with more I will not stay to tell,

This temple itself with its magnificence,

The hope of Him foreshown, the Messenger

Of that eternal covenant wherein

Your souls delight themselves, Who suddenly

One day shall come unto His temple—blot,

Expunge, erase, efface, consent to be

No more a people, mix and merge yourselves

With aliens, blood that in your veins flows pure

All the long way one stream continuous down

From Abraham called the friend of God—such blood

Adulterate in the idolatrous, corrupt

Pool of the Gentiles—men of Israel!

Or are ye men? and are ye Israel?

I stand in doubt of you—I stand in doubt

Of kinsmen mine supposed that bide to hear

Such things as seems that ye with pleasure hear!

"Say, know ye not they mean to take away

Your place and name? Are ye so blind? Or are

Ye only base poor creatures caring not

Though knowing well? Oft have ye seen the fat

Of lambs upon the flaming altar fume

One instant and in fume consume away;

So swiftly and so utterly shall pass,

In vapor of smoke, the glorious excellency,

The pomp, the pride, nay, but the being itself,

Of this our nation from beneath the sun,

Let once the hideous doctrine of a Christ

Condemned and crucified usurp the place

In Hebrew hearts of that undying hope

We cherish of Messiah yet to reign

In power and glory more than Solomon's,

From sunrise round to sunrise without end,

And tread the Gentiles underneath our feet."

Indignant patriot spirit in the breast

Of Rachel mixed itself with kindred pride

And gladness for her brother gleaming so

Before her in a kind of fulgurous scorn

Which made his hearers quail while they admired;

She could not stay a sudden gush of tears.

But Saul's voice now took on a winning change,

As, deprecating gently, thus he spoke:

"Forgive, my brethren, I have used hot words

Freely and frankly, as great love may speak.

But that I love you, trust you, hope of you

The best, the noblest, when once more you are

Yourselves, and feel the spirit of your past

Come back, I had not cared to speak at all.

I simply should have hung my head in shame,

Worn sackcloth, gone with ashes on my brow,

And sealed my hand upon my lips for you

Forever. Love does not despair, but hopes

Forever. And I love you far too well

To dream despair of you. Bethink yourselves,

My brethren! Me, as if I were the voice

Of your own ancient aspiration, hear.

Bear with me, let me chide, say not that love

Lured me to over-confidence of you.

"Be patient now, my brethren, while I go,

So briefly as I may, through argument

That well might ask the leisure of long hours,

To show from Scripture, from authority,

From reason and from nature too not less,

Why we should hold to our ancestral faith,

And not the low fanatic creed admit

Of such as preach for Christ one crucified.

Be patient—I myself must patient be,

Tutoring down my heart to let my tongue

Speak calmly, as in doubtful argument,

Where I am fixed and confident to scorn."

As when Gennesaret, in his circling hills,

By wing of wind down swooping suddenly

Is into tempest wrought that, to his depths

Astir, he rouses, and on high his waves

Uplifts like mountains snowy-capped with foam;

So, smitten with the vehement impact

And passion of Saul's rash, abrupt

Beginning, that mercurial multitude

Had answered with commotion such as seemed

Menace of instant act of violence:

But, as when haply there succeeds a lull

To tempest, then the waves of Galilee

Sink from their swelling and smooth down to plane

Yet deep will roll awhile from shore to shore

That long slow undulation following storm;

So, when, with wise self-recollection, Saul,

In mid-career of passionate appeal,

Stayed, and those gusts of stormy eloquence

Impetuous poured no longer on the sea

Of audience underneath him, but, instead,

Proposed a sober task of argument,

The surging throng surceased its turbulence,

And settled from commotion into calm;

Yet so as still to feel the rock and sway

Of central agitation at its heart,

While thus that master of its moods went on:

"What said Jehovah to the serpent vile

Which tempted Eve? Did he not speak of One,

Offspring to her seduced, Who should arise

To crush the offending head? No hint, I trow,

Of meekness and obedience unto death

Found there at least, death on the shameful tree,

Forsooth, to be the character and doom

Of that foretokened Champion of his kind,

That haughty Trampler upon Satan's head!

"To Abraham our father was of God

Foretold, 'In thee shall all the families

Of the earth be blessed.' What blessing, pray, could come

Abroad upon mankind through Abraham's seed,

Messiah, should Messiah, Abraham's seed,

Prove to be such as now is preached to you,

A shame, a jest, a byword, a reproach,

A hissing and a wagging of the head,

A gazing-stock and mark for tongues shot out—

Burlesque and travesty of our brave hopes

And of our vaunts, shown vain, rife everywhere

Among the nations, that erelong a prince

Should from the stem of Jesse spring, to sway

An universal sceptre through the world?

"Did God mock Abraham? Did He mean, perchance,

That all the families of the earth should find

Peculiar blessedness in triumphing

Over that puissant nation promised him,

His progeny, to match the stars of heaven

For multitude, and be as on the shore

The sands, innumerable? Was such the sense

Of promise and of prophecy? Behooves,

Then, we be glad and thankful, we, on whom

The fullness of the time now falls, to be

This blessing to the Gentiles. But ye halt,

Beloved. Slack and slow seem ye to greet

The honor fixed on you. Why, hearken! Ye,

Ye, out of all the generations, ye

Fallen on the times of Jesus crucified,

May count yourselves elect and called of God

To bless the Gentiles, in affording them

Unquenchable amusement to behold

Your wretched plight and broken pride! Now clap

Your hands, ye chosen! Let your mouth be filled

With laughter, and your tongue with singing filled!

"Nay, sons of Abraham, nay. No mocking words

Spake He who cannot lie, Lord God of truth

And grace. He meant that Abraham's race should reign

From sea to sea while sun and moon endure.

And ever a blessing true it is to men

To bend the neck beneath an equal yoke

Of ruler strong and wise and just to rule.

Then will at last the Gentiles blesséd be

In Abraham, when, from Abraham's loins derived

Through David, God's Anointed shall begin,

In David's city, His long government

Of the wide world, and every heathen name

Shall kiss the rod and own Messiah king.

"Our father Jacob, touched with prophecy,

Spake of a sceptre that should not depart

From Judah until Shiloh came, to Whom

The obedience of the peoples was to be;

A sceptre, symbol of authority

And rule, law-giving attribute, resort

Of subject nations speeding to a yoke—

Such ever everywhere in Holy Writ

The image and the character impressed

On God's Messiah, hope of Israel.

"What need I more? Wherefore to ears like yours,

Well used to hear them in the temple chants

Resounded with responsive voice to voice,

Rehearse those triumphs and antiphonies

Wherein Jehovah Father to His Son

Messiah speaks: 'Ask Thou of Me, and I

To Thee the heathen for inheritance

Will give, and for possession the extreme

Parts of the earth. Thou shalt with rod of iron

Break them, yea, shatter them shalt Thou in shards,

Like a clay vessel from the potters hand.

Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings, be ye

Instructed, judges of the earth. Kiss ye

The Son, lest He be angry, and His wrath,

Full soon to be enkindled, you devour.'

Tell me, which mood of prophecy is that,

The meek or the heroic? Craven he,

Or king, to whom Jehovah deigns such speech,

Concerning whom such counsel recommends?

"'Gird Thou upon Thy thigh Thy sword, O Thou

Most Mighty,'—so once more the psalmist, rapt

Prophetical as to a martial rage,

Breaks forth, Jehovah to Messiah speaking—

'Gird on Thy glory and Thy majesty;

And in Thy majesty ride prosperously,

And Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things.

Sharp in the heart of the king's enemies

Thine arrows are, whereby the peoples fall

Beneath Thee.' Such Messiah is, a man

Of war and captain of the host of God.

Nay, now it mounts to a deific strain,

The prophet exultation of the psalm:

'Thy throne, O God' it sings—advancing Him,

Messiah, to the unequalled dignity

And lonely glory of the ONE I AM,

Audacious figure—close on blasphemy,

Were it not God who speaks—to represent

The dazzling splendors of Messiahship.

"Let us erect our spirits from the dust,

My brethren, and, as sons of God, nay, gods

Pronounced—unless we grovel and below

Our birthright due, unfilial and unfit,

Sink self-depressed—let us, I pray you, rise,

Buoyed upward from within by sense of worth

Incapable to be extinguished, rise,

Found equal to the will of God for us,

And know the true Messiah when He comes.

Be sure that when He comes, His high degree

Will shine illustrious, like the sun in heaven,

Not feebly flicker for your fishermen

From Galilee to point it out to you

With their illiterate 'Lo, here!' 'Lo, there!'"

At this increasing burst of scorn from Saul,

Exultant like the pæan and the cry

That rises through the palpitating air

When storming warriors take the citadel,

Once more from Rachel's fixéd eyes the tears

Of sympathetic exultation flowed—

The sister with the brother, as in strife

Before the battle striving equally,

Now equally in triumph triumphing.

But Saul, his triumph, felt to be secure,

Securer still will make with new appeal:

"If so, as we have seen, the Scriptures trend,

Not less the current of tradition too—

No counter-current, eddy none—one stress,

Steady and full, from Adam down to you,

Runs strong the self-same way. Out of the past

What voice is heard in contradiction? None.

"Turn round and ask the present; you shall hear

One answer still the same from every mouth

Of scribe or master versed in Holy Writ.

Tradition and authority in this

Agree with Scripture, teaching to await

For our deliverer an anointed king.

What ruler of our people has believed

In Jesus, him of Nazareth, Joseph's son,

As Christ of God? If any, then some soul

Self-judged unworthy of his rulership,

Secret disciple, shunning to avow

His faith, and justly therefore counted naught—

Ruler in name, in nature rather slave.

"And now I bid you look within your breast

And answer, Does not your own heart rebel

Against the gospel of the Nazarene?

'Gospel,' forsooth! Has God, who made your heart,

Provided you for gospel what your heart

Rejects with loathing? Likely seems it, pray,

Becoming, fit, that He Who, on the mount

Of Sinai once the law promulging, there

Displayed His glory more than mortal eye

Could bear to look upon or ear to hear—

Who in the temple hid behind the veil

Shekinah blazed between the cherubim—

Nay, tell me, seems it tolerable even

To you, that your Jehovah God should choose,

Lover of splendor as He is, and power,

To represent Himself among mankind

Not merely naked of magnificence,

But outright squalid in the mean estate

And person of a carpenter, to die

At last apparent felon crucified?

Reason and nature outraged cry aloud,

'For shame! For shame!' at blasphemy like this."

A strange ungentle impulse moved the heart

Of Rachel to a mood like mutiny,

And almost she "For shame!" herself cried out

In echo to her brother's vehemence;

While murmur as of wind rousing to storm

Ran through the assembly at such words from Saul,

The passion of the speaker so prevailed

To stir responsive passion in their breasts.

This Saul perceiving said, in scornful pride,

Fallaciously foretasting triumph won:

"Ye men of Israel, gladly I perceive

Some embers of the ancient fire remain,

If smouldering, not extinguished, in your breasts.

I will not further chafe your noble rage.

You are, if I mistake not, now prepared

To hear more safely, if less patiently,

The eloquence I keep you from too long.

Let me bespeak for Stephen your best heed."

And Saul, as if in gesture of surcease,

A pace retiring, waved around his hand

Toward Stephen, opposite not far, the while

His nostril he dispread, and mobile lip

Curled, in the height of contumelious scorn;

And Rachel, where she stood, unconsciously,

The transport of her sympathy was such,

Repeated with her features what she saw.