Felix and Drusilla on the one hand and Krishna on the other disclose the contrasted feelings severally excited in them by what they had just witnessed in the lot of Shimei. Krishna seeks from his friend Sergius Paulus explanation of the relations that subsisted between those ministering Christians and the sufferer. He at length requests and obtains an interview with Paul, and the two have a conversation, one result of which is that Krishna asks to hear a full account of the life and character of Jesus Christ. Paul proposes that Mary Magdalené give this account, but Krishna courteously declines to receive it from the lips of a woman. The ship meantime puts in at The Fair Havens, whence, after a short stay in that anchorage, it sets sail, against the advice of Paul.
PAUL AND KRISHNA.
As one transported to a different sphere,Some sinless planet fairer far than ours,Amid new scenes and aspects there beheld,Would watch and wonder and not understand,So had the most of that ship's company,Not understanding, but much wondering, watchedWhat passed between the wretched ShimeiAnd those his ministers of grace and love.Felix, discoursing with Drusilla, said(For he, by virtue of his being himself,Perforced divined accordingly—amiss)"Much painful cultivation, for no fruit!Paul, turn and turn about, that time did seemHis enemy at advantage to have had,And prospect was that Shimei, won to himWith all those unexpected services(Sore needed, in such sorry case, no doubt!)Would, could he first make shift to clearhimself,Right face about at Rome and, far from beingAn adversary witness against Paul,Swear him snow-white with turncoat testimony.How easily king Jupiter, with that passOf playful lightning, brought it all to naught!"Said Felix; then, with change abrupt from sneer,Grim added this, in sullen afterthought:"That lightning was a neat dispatch forhim!I wish that it had fallen onmeinstead.""Ill-omened from thy lips such words as those,"Drusilla answered. "And what love to meSpeak they, thy wife and queen—not with her lordJoined in thine imprecation dire of doom?Perhaps indeed we shall be separateIn death—with death, despite the difference,But differently horrible to both!For I havemyforebodings, bred of thine,And dread to be somehow hereafter caughtIn some form of calamity unknownBut unescapable and horribleAnd final and fatal as that Shimei's.And what if he, our son (thine image—form,And face, and character, and all) dear pledgeTo me of love that once his father boreHis mother, happy she as worthy judged,Once!—what if he, our little Felix tooBe in that dread catastrophe involved!"Drusilla thus half feigned contagious fears,But half she felt them; for in truth she now,So long in shadow from her husband's mood,Was under power of gloomy imaginings.Yet, felt or feigned her fears, she made them spellsThis day to conjure with, when to her ownImage the little Felix's she joinedIn desperate hope to spur her husband's spiritOut of the slough of his despondencyAnd comfort him by making him comfort her.But Felix was not fiber fine enoughTo feel even, less to heed, appeal wrung outThough from sincerest pain for sympathy;And now his own crass egoism coarsely knewHow shallow, or how hollow, or how false,This subtler egoism of his consort was.Drusilla's art defeated its own end;Felix more murkily lowered, and muttered fierceBetwixt set teeth in husky tones and low:"Aye, and whynotthou too along with me?Count thyself meant—thyself not less than me—In what that memorable day was saidAt Cæsarea in the judgment hall—Said, and much more conveyed without being said—By that Jew Paul, of dark impending doom.If I am wicked, sure thou art wicked too;The gods must hate us, if they hate, alike.Let us, since hated jointly, jointly hate.Perhaps compact and cordial partnershipBetwixt us in some hatred chosen wellWill be almost as good as mutual love!"Drusilla to such savage cynicismGave loth ear bitterly, as one well sureIt were not wise in anything to crossHer husband's brutal whim, and he went on:"There is that milksop Sergius Paulus—heRoman, forsooth! The Roman in his blood,If ever Roman ran therein true red,Has been washed white with something else infused.I much misdoubt that Paul has brought him roundTo be disciple of the Nazarene.A pretty pair, a Roman and a Jew—Like us, my dear Drusilla! And the Jew,In either case, the chief one of the pair!"With such communings entertained those two,Adulterer and adulteress, the hours;The passion that they once had miscalled love,Yea, even that passion—long in either breastWith the disgust of sick satietyPalled—now at length by guilt and guilty fears,Brood of ambition disappointed, slain:But in the ashes of such burned-out loveSmouldered the embers of self-fuelled hate,Fell fire that thus on Sergius fixed its fangs!Meanwhile that Indian Krishna, deep in muse,Masked with impassable demeanor mildFrom all about him, from himself even, maskedA trouble of wonder that he could not lay.He gazed with gentle furtiveness at PaulAnd strove to read the riddle of the man.He felt Paul's spirit different from his own;His own was placid with placidityResembling death, or trance and apathyThat would be, were it perfect, death. But Paul,Not placid, peaceful rather, seemed to liveNot less but more intensely than the rest,His fellow-creatures round him in the world;A life of passion reconciled with peace!'Impossible! Passion reconciled with peace!'Thought Krishna; 'I seek peace through passion slain,Expecting, I the seeker, not to beAt all, the moment I a finder am.This Hebrew has the secret now of peace;Strange peace, not passionless, but passionate!—Extinction not of being, here forestalled,Like that for which I strive by ceasing striving(With fear lest after all I miss the mark,And only strive to cease, not cease to strive)Nay, no nirvâna antedated, his—That hope of our lord Buddha hard to win—But life increased with life to such a powerAs is the mighty river's grown too greatTo register in eddy or ripple evenResistance in its channel overcome.Is life then, boundless, better than blank death?'So Krishna mused in doubt beholding Paul,Until at last to Sergius Paulus he,Breaking the seals of silence, spoke and said:"If to thy thinking meet, bring me, I pray,To speak with Paul, so named, thy friend as seems.But first tell me who was, and what, that JewTo such plight of sheer wretchedness reducedThat to be rid by lightning of his lifeSeemed blessing, whatsoever might ensueHereafter to him in his next estate,Doubtless some sad metempsychosis due.Was he perhaps a kinsman near of Paul?""Nay, kinsman none, save as all Jews are kin,Descended from the same forefather old,"Said Sergius. "Then perhaps of some of those,Near kinsman," Krishna said, "women with men,Who watched with that long patience over him,And won him as from death to life with love?""Nay, also not their kinsman," Sergius said,Pleasing himself with saying no more, to seeHow far the silence-loving Indian drawnBy unaccustomed wonder still would seek."Some reverend father of his people, then,"Krishna adventured guessing, "whom, oppressedWith undeserved calamity, they yetHonored themselves with honoring to the end?""O nay, far otherwise than such, he was,"Said Sergius, "vile, most vile by them esteemed,And that of rich desert, a man of shameAnd crime committed or fomented still.""Then haply—not of purpose, but by chance"—Said Krishna, groping deeper in his dark,"That vile man yet, if even by wickedness,Had wrought some service to these kindly folkWhich they would not without requital pass?""Still from the mark," said Sergius, "thy surmise.That evil man no end of evil deedInstead had plotted and led on in guileAgainst these gentle people to their woe.Last, and but late, during this selfsame voyageOf theirs from Syria to Rome, on boardThat other vessel whence they came to us,He sought, with midnight bribe and treachery,To compass violent death for Paul, a man,As thou hast seen, beyond belief beloved,And for good cause, of all. That failing, heWith perjury and well-supported fraudOf adamantine front and impudence,Charged upon Paul attempt to murderhim."So Sergius Paulus, with some generous heat,And horror of the heinous things he told.He said no more and Krishna naught replied.After much vexing controversy vainWith winds that varying ever blew adverse,They had made the roadstead of The Havens Fair.Here they dropped anchor, glad of peace and restAnd leisure to consider of their way,Whether they still would forward stem despiteThe threats of winter, or there wait for spring.Krishna fell silent when those things he heardFrom Sergius Paulus; silent Krishna fell,But in his bosom shut deep musings upWhereof the first he, in due season broughtTo speech with Paul while they at anchor rode,Propounded with preamble soft and suaveIn words like these: "Much merit hast thou hopeDoubtless, yea, and most justly, to have earned,Thou, and thy Hebrew fellow-voyagers,With all that ill-deservéd kindness shownHim, thy base countryman, whom, thunderstruck,Fate hurried lately hence to other doom.A millstone burden bound about the neckIs karma such as his to weigh one down—'Karma,' we say; but otherwise perhapsThou speakest; merit or demerit, whatAccrues to one inseparable from himself,In part his earning, heritage in part,The harvest reapt of virtue or of vice—Aye, karma such as his was weighs one downIn dying, to new life more dire than death.Hard-won a karma like thine own, but worthThe winning though ten thousand times more hard!"Paul felt the Indian's gentleness and lovedHim with great pity answering him: "I knowThy meaning, and I take the courtesy,While yet the praise I cannot, of thy words.My karma is not mine as won by meWith either easy sleight or hard assay—The karma thou hast seemed in me to find:That was bestowed, and is from hour to hourWith ever fresh bestowal still renewed.I had a karma once indeed my own,Much valued, wage it was of labor sore,But it grew hateful in my opened eyesAnd I despised it underneath my feetTo be as dross rejected and abjured."Paul's sudden vehemence in recital seemedLess vehemence from recalling of long-pastStrong spurning, than that spurning now renewed.Unmoved the Indian save to mild surpriseMade answer: "Our lord Buddha teaches usOur karma is inalienably ours,The fatal fruit of what we do and are,No more to be divided from ourselvesThan shadow from its substance in the sun.But, nay, that figure fails; our karma isSubstantial and enduring more than we.We die, our karma lives; it shuffles offUs as outworn, and takes unto itselfForever other forms to fit its needs,Until the cycle is filled of change and change,And misery and existence cease together.Such karma is, the one substantial thing,And such are we, mere shadows of a day.Pray then explain to me how thou dost sayThou ridst thee of a karma once thine own;And how moreover thou canst add and sayThou tookst another karma, given, not won.I fain would understand the doctrine thine."With something of a sweet despondencyPathetically tingeing his good will,Paul on the gentle Indian gazed and said:"O brother, with all wish to meet thee fair,Yet know I that I cannot answer thee,Save as in parable and paradoxBeyond thine understanding, yea, and mine."Paul so replied because his mind indeedSank in a sense sincere of impotence;But partly too because he felt full wellHow all-accomplished in the skill of thought,How subtle, and how deep, the Indian was,As how by nature and by habit fondOf allegory and of mystery.He deemed that he should best his end attainOf feeding this inquiring spirit fineWith the chief truth, by frankly staggering him,As the Lord staggered Nicodemus once,With that which in his doctrine was the highestAnd hardest to receive or understand,Set forth in terms of shadow to perplex,But also tempt to further curious quest.Merging the Indian's idiom in his ownAnd lading it with unwonted sense, Paul said:"That karma, erst so valued, I escapedHow? by becoming other than I was.The old man died and a new man was born,With a new karma given him, of pure grace,A seamless robe of snow-white righteousness,Enduement from the hand of One that diedTo earn the right of so bestowing it.Raiment of filthy rags with pride I had wornBefore, not knowing, painful patchwork piecedUpon me of such works of righteousnessMine own as cost me dear indeed, yet worthNothing to hide my nakedness and shame.Now I am clad in Jesus' righteousness,A shining vesture, with nor seam nor stain.""Proud words, albeit not proudly spoken, thine,"Said Krishna; "spotlessly enrobed art thouIn righteousness and karma without flaw,Then thou hast reached the issue of The WayAnd art already for nirvâna ripe:Gautama could not make a bolder claimWhen, conquering, he attained the Buddhaship.Yet meekly thou madest mention of pure grace,And merit all another's, not thine own.A paradox indeed, perplexing me,Such boldness mixed with such humility.""Yea," Paul said, "the humility it isThat makes the boldness thou hast found in me;It were defect of right humilityNot boldly to obey when Christ bids do.Christ bids me take His perfect righteousness;I can be humble but by taking it—Boldly? yea, or as if boldly, for hereHumility and boldness twain are one.""To thee thy teacher Christ," said Krishna, "seemsSomething the same as Buddha is to me:Yet other, more; not teacher simply, ChristTo thee, and master, setter forth of wiseInstructions and commands obeying whichThou also now, as he once saved himself,Mayst thyself save through merit hardly earned.Thy Christ is will, not less than wisdom; powerAnd help, as well as guidance in the way.Sovereign creator and imparter, heSaves thee, thou trustest, through new life bestowed,Which makes thee other than thou wast before,And therefore frees thee from the fatal yokeAnd bondage of the karma thou hadst wonWith labor when thou wast the former man:The words are easy, but the sense is hard.""Hard?" Paul said; "nay, outright impossibleTo any soul of man that still abidesHis old first natural self unchanged to new.Submit thyself unto the righteousnessOf God, and thou the mystery shalt knowWith knowledge deeper than the mind's most deepDivinings of the things she cannot speak.""To fate, the universe, and necessity,"Said Krishna, "I submit, because I must.But to submit because I will, to any thing,Much more to any one, that is, give upMy will, which is my self, my very self,To be another's and no longer mine,Consent to be another person quiteThan I have been, and am, and wish to be—This thou proposest to me, if I takeRightly thy words to mean thou thus hast done,Becoming what thou art by vital changeFrom something different that thou wast before.I frankly tell thee I have not the powerSo to commute myself, had I the will.""'I cannot' is 'I will not' here," said Paul;"No power is needful of thine own save will:Will, and thou canst; God then in thee is power.Consider, it is only to submit.""I feel my inmost will in me disdain,"Said Krishna, "this effacement of myself.""Yea, yea," said Paul, "it is the carnal mindIn thee, the primal unregenerate selfEver in all at enmity with God,Which is not subject to the law of God,Neither indeed can be; to be, were deathTo that old self which must resist, to live:The carnal mind is enmity to God;When enmity to God ceases in one,Then ceases in that one the carnal mind,The original man with his self-righteousnessHis karma, if thou please, his good, his ill.He is no more, and all that appertainsTo him is dead and buried out of sightForever; but there lives a second selfBy resurrection from that sepulcher—By fresh creation rather from the dead—A new regenerate man at one with God,For to the law of God agreed in will,Replaced the carnal with the spiritual mind,Warfare and death exchanged for life and peace."Into Paul's voice, he ceasing with those words,There slid a cadence as of reverie:He seemed to muse so deeply what he saidThat he less said than felt it; 'life' and 'peace,'So spoken, no mere sounds upon the tongue,Were audible pulses of the living heart.Invasion thence of power seized Krishna's soul,And, 'Life and peace!' he murmured, 'Life and peace!'But said aloud: "Strange union, peace with life!Welook for peace only with death, last death,That death indeed beyond which nothing is,No further transmigration of the soul,No soul, no karma, all pure passionlessNon-being; not a state, since state impliesSome subject of a state, and here is none,To do or suffer or at all to be:Absolute zero, such the Buddhist's peace.""'I am come,' Jesus said," so Paul replied,"'That ye might have life, more abundant life.'Life, life, deep stream and full, a river of God,Pours endless, boundless, from the heart of Christ;'Ho, every one that thirsteth, drink,' said He,'Lo, drink and live with mine eternal life.'""I fear fallacious promises of good,"Sighed Krishna; "life were good indeed with peace.But me, I hope not any good save flight,Save flight and refuge inaccessibleFrom persecuting and pursuing ill.Being is misery; I would cease to be;No hope have I, and no desire, but that.Hope is for children; I am not a childTo chase the ends of rainbows, seeking gold:There is no hope that does not make ashamed.I dare not hope, eagerly, even for death,Lest that likewise elude my clutch at last.Despair no less I shun; despair is naughtBut hope turned bitter and sour, postponed too long.I only seek to cease from hope, from fear,From every passion that can shake my calm.Calm is my good, and perfect calm is death,Therefore I wait for death with death-like calm.Thou wouldst disturb the calm with hope of life,Fair, but fallacious; let me alone to die."With soft pathetic deprecation soKrishna, in form of words, half faltering, beggedFrom Paul no more, yet added: "I would hearSomething of what he was, thy master; whatHe did as well as taught; and whence he came,And when, and where, and how; and how he livedAnd died, having achieved his Buddhaship.""For me," Paul said, "I never truly knewMy Master while He lived among us here,Almighty God incarnate in the formOf servant—glory and blessing to His name!—Though after He in triumph from the deadRose, and ascended far above all heightInto the heaven of heavens to be with God—Whence he had stooped the dreadful distance downTo His humiliation among men—Then He revealed Himself in power to me,And I beheld His face and heard His voice,And knew Him for co-equal Son of God.But thou, besides that in this power and gloryNo man may see Him save He show Himself,Wouldst wish a picture of the life He lived,The manner of man He was, while still on earth,The death He died, and how He died His death.There is one here among us well can drawThe living picture thou wouldst look upon,For she was with Him when He walked the waysOf Galilee and Jewry doing good;She saw Him suffer when by wicked handsHis blindfold yetmorewicked countrymen—Alas, among them I!—put Him to death.With early morning at His sepulcher,His emptied sepulcher, she weeping stoodAnd saw—but what she saw and all her taleOf Jesus as she knew and loved Him here,Is Mary Magdalené's right herselfWith her own lips and is her joy, to tell.""Lord Buddha would not let a woman teach,"Indulging so much of recoil concealedAs might consist with utmost courtesySaid Krishna; but, with wise avoidance, Paul:"And Mary Magdalené will not teach,But only in simplicity with truthBear testimony of eye-witness howImmanuel Jesus lived His life on earth."While thus they talked a movement on the deck,Words of command and bustle to obey,Betokened that the purpose was to leaveThe sheltered anchorage of The Havens FairAnd tempt the dangers of the winter deep.Paul saw it and suddenly broke off discourseWith Krishna, saying to him: "They err in this;Surely we here should winter. Let me speakA moment with the master of the ship."Krishna with such surprise as disapprovedDimly in his immobile features shown,Watched while this intermeddling strange went on;Strange intermeddling ventured, strangely borne,Captive to captor bringing advice unsought;For Paul to the centurion also turnedWhen now the master and the owner bothAgreed against him; but that Roman choseLikewise his part with them to sail away.
As one transported to a different sphere,Some sinless planet fairer far than ours,Amid new scenes and aspects there beheld,Would watch and wonder and not understand,So had the most of that ship's company,Not understanding, but much wondering, watchedWhat passed between the wretched ShimeiAnd those his ministers of grace and love.
Felix, discoursing with Drusilla, said(For he, by virtue of his being himself,Perforced divined accordingly—amiss)"Much painful cultivation, for no fruit!Paul, turn and turn about, that time did seemHis enemy at advantage to have had,And prospect was that Shimei, won to himWith all those unexpected services(Sore needed, in such sorry case, no doubt!)Would, could he first make shift to clearhimself,Right face about at Rome and, far from beingAn adversary witness against Paul,Swear him snow-white with turncoat testimony.How easily king Jupiter, with that passOf playful lightning, brought it all to naught!"Said Felix; then, with change abrupt from sneer,Grim added this, in sullen afterthought:"That lightning was a neat dispatch forhim!I wish that it had fallen onmeinstead.""Ill-omened from thy lips such words as those,"Drusilla answered. "And what love to meSpeak they, thy wife and queen—not with her lordJoined in thine imprecation dire of doom?Perhaps indeed we shall be separateIn death—with death, despite the difference,But differently horrible to both!For I havemyforebodings, bred of thine,And dread to be somehow hereafter caughtIn some form of calamity unknownBut unescapable and horribleAnd final and fatal as that Shimei's.And what if he, our son (thine image—form,And face, and character, and all) dear pledgeTo me of love that once his father boreHis mother, happy she as worthy judged,Once!—what if he, our little Felix tooBe in that dread catastrophe involved!"
Drusilla thus half feigned contagious fears,But half she felt them; for in truth she now,So long in shadow from her husband's mood,Was under power of gloomy imaginings.Yet, felt or feigned her fears, she made them spellsThis day to conjure with, when to her ownImage the little Felix's she joinedIn desperate hope to spur her husband's spiritOut of the slough of his despondencyAnd comfort him by making him comfort her.But Felix was not fiber fine enoughTo feel even, less to heed, appeal wrung outThough from sincerest pain for sympathy;And now his own crass egoism coarsely knewHow shallow, or how hollow, or how false,This subtler egoism of his consort was.Drusilla's art defeated its own end;Felix more murkily lowered, and muttered fierceBetwixt set teeth in husky tones and low:"Aye, and whynotthou too along with me?Count thyself meant—thyself not less than me—In what that memorable day was saidAt Cæsarea in the judgment hall—Said, and much more conveyed without being said—By that Jew Paul, of dark impending doom.If I am wicked, sure thou art wicked too;The gods must hate us, if they hate, alike.Let us, since hated jointly, jointly hate.Perhaps compact and cordial partnershipBetwixt us in some hatred chosen wellWill be almost as good as mutual love!"Drusilla to such savage cynicismGave loth ear bitterly, as one well sureIt were not wise in anything to crossHer husband's brutal whim, and he went on:"There is that milksop Sergius Paulus—heRoman, forsooth! The Roman in his blood,If ever Roman ran therein true red,Has been washed white with something else infused.I much misdoubt that Paul has brought him roundTo be disciple of the Nazarene.A pretty pair, a Roman and a Jew—Like us, my dear Drusilla! And the Jew,In either case, the chief one of the pair!"
With such communings entertained those two,Adulterer and adulteress, the hours;The passion that they once had miscalled love,Yea, even that passion—long in either breastWith the disgust of sick satietyPalled—now at length by guilt and guilty fears,Brood of ambition disappointed, slain:But in the ashes of such burned-out loveSmouldered the embers of self-fuelled hate,Fell fire that thus on Sergius fixed its fangs!
Meanwhile that Indian Krishna, deep in muse,Masked with impassable demeanor mildFrom all about him, from himself even, maskedA trouble of wonder that he could not lay.He gazed with gentle furtiveness at PaulAnd strove to read the riddle of the man.He felt Paul's spirit different from his own;His own was placid with placidityResembling death, or trance and apathyThat would be, were it perfect, death. But Paul,Not placid, peaceful rather, seemed to liveNot less but more intensely than the rest,His fellow-creatures round him in the world;A life of passion reconciled with peace!'Impossible! Passion reconciled with peace!'Thought Krishna; 'I seek peace through passion slain,Expecting, I the seeker, not to beAt all, the moment I a finder am.This Hebrew has the secret now of peace;Strange peace, not passionless, but passionate!—Extinction not of being, here forestalled,Like that for which I strive by ceasing striving(With fear lest after all I miss the mark,And only strive to cease, not cease to strive)Nay, no nirvâna antedated, his—That hope of our lord Buddha hard to win—But life increased with life to such a powerAs is the mighty river's grown too greatTo register in eddy or ripple evenResistance in its channel overcome.Is life then, boundless, better than blank death?'
So Krishna mused in doubt beholding Paul,Until at last to Sergius Paulus he,Breaking the seals of silence, spoke and said:"If to thy thinking meet, bring me, I pray,To speak with Paul, so named, thy friend as seems.But first tell me who was, and what, that JewTo such plight of sheer wretchedness reducedThat to be rid by lightning of his lifeSeemed blessing, whatsoever might ensueHereafter to him in his next estate,Doubtless some sad metempsychosis due.Was he perhaps a kinsman near of Paul?""Nay, kinsman none, save as all Jews are kin,Descended from the same forefather old,"Said Sergius. "Then perhaps of some of those,Near kinsman," Krishna said, "women with men,Who watched with that long patience over him,And won him as from death to life with love?""Nay, also not their kinsman," Sergius said,Pleasing himself with saying no more, to seeHow far the silence-loving Indian drawnBy unaccustomed wonder still would seek."Some reverend father of his people, then,"Krishna adventured guessing, "whom, oppressedWith undeserved calamity, they yetHonored themselves with honoring to the end?""O nay, far otherwise than such, he was,"Said Sergius, "vile, most vile by them esteemed,And that of rich desert, a man of shameAnd crime committed or fomented still.""Then haply—not of purpose, but by chance"—Said Krishna, groping deeper in his dark,"That vile man yet, if even by wickedness,Had wrought some service to these kindly folkWhich they would not without requital pass?""Still from the mark," said Sergius, "thy surmise.That evil man no end of evil deedInstead had plotted and led on in guileAgainst these gentle people to their woe.Last, and but late, during this selfsame voyageOf theirs from Syria to Rome, on boardThat other vessel whence they came to us,He sought, with midnight bribe and treachery,To compass violent death for Paul, a man,As thou hast seen, beyond belief beloved,And for good cause, of all. That failing, heWith perjury and well-supported fraudOf adamantine front and impudence,Charged upon Paul attempt to murderhim."
So Sergius Paulus, with some generous heat,And horror of the heinous things he told.He said no more and Krishna naught replied.
After much vexing controversy vainWith winds that varying ever blew adverse,They had made the roadstead of The Havens Fair.Here they dropped anchor, glad of peace and restAnd leisure to consider of their way,Whether they still would forward stem despiteThe threats of winter, or there wait for spring.
Krishna fell silent when those things he heardFrom Sergius Paulus; silent Krishna fell,But in his bosom shut deep musings upWhereof the first he, in due season broughtTo speech with Paul while they at anchor rode,Propounded with preamble soft and suaveIn words like these: "Much merit hast thou hopeDoubtless, yea, and most justly, to have earned,Thou, and thy Hebrew fellow-voyagers,With all that ill-deservéd kindness shownHim, thy base countryman, whom, thunderstruck,Fate hurried lately hence to other doom.A millstone burden bound about the neckIs karma such as his to weigh one down—'Karma,' we say; but otherwise perhapsThou speakest; merit or demerit, whatAccrues to one inseparable from himself,In part his earning, heritage in part,The harvest reapt of virtue or of vice—Aye, karma such as his was weighs one downIn dying, to new life more dire than death.Hard-won a karma like thine own, but worthThe winning though ten thousand times more hard!"
Paul felt the Indian's gentleness and lovedHim with great pity answering him: "I knowThy meaning, and I take the courtesy,While yet the praise I cannot, of thy words.My karma is not mine as won by meWith either easy sleight or hard assay—The karma thou hast seemed in me to find:That was bestowed, and is from hour to hourWith ever fresh bestowal still renewed.I had a karma once indeed my own,Much valued, wage it was of labor sore,But it grew hateful in my opened eyesAnd I despised it underneath my feetTo be as dross rejected and abjured."
Paul's sudden vehemence in recital seemedLess vehemence from recalling of long-pastStrong spurning, than that spurning now renewed.Unmoved the Indian save to mild surpriseMade answer: "Our lord Buddha teaches usOur karma is inalienably ours,The fatal fruit of what we do and are,No more to be divided from ourselvesThan shadow from its substance in the sun.But, nay, that figure fails; our karma isSubstantial and enduring more than we.We die, our karma lives; it shuffles offUs as outworn, and takes unto itselfForever other forms to fit its needs,Until the cycle is filled of change and change,And misery and existence cease together.Such karma is, the one substantial thing,And such are we, mere shadows of a day.Pray then explain to me how thou dost sayThou ridst thee of a karma once thine own;And how moreover thou canst add and sayThou tookst another karma, given, not won.I fain would understand the doctrine thine."
With something of a sweet despondencyPathetically tingeing his good will,Paul on the gentle Indian gazed and said:"O brother, with all wish to meet thee fair,Yet know I that I cannot answer thee,Save as in parable and paradoxBeyond thine understanding, yea, and mine."
Paul so replied because his mind indeedSank in a sense sincere of impotence;But partly too because he felt full wellHow all-accomplished in the skill of thought,How subtle, and how deep, the Indian was,As how by nature and by habit fondOf allegory and of mystery.He deemed that he should best his end attainOf feeding this inquiring spirit fineWith the chief truth, by frankly staggering him,As the Lord staggered Nicodemus once,With that which in his doctrine was the highestAnd hardest to receive or understand,Set forth in terms of shadow to perplex,But also tempt to further curious quest.Merging the Indian's idiom in his ownAnd lading it with unwonted sense, Paul said:"That karma, erst so valued, I escapedHow? by becoming other than I was.The old man died and a new man was born,With a new karma given him, of pure grace,A seamless robe of snow-white righteousness,Enduement from the hand of One that diedTo earn the right of so bestowing it.Raiment of filthy rags with pride I had wornBefore, not knowing, painful patchwork piecedUpon me of such works of righteousnessMine own as cost me dear indeed, yet worthNothing to hide my nakedness and shame.Now I am clad in Jesus' righteousness,A shining vesture, with nor seam nor stain."
"Proud words, albeit not proudly spoken, thine,"Said Krishna; "spotlessly enrobed art thouIn righteousness and karma without flaw,Then thou hast reached the issue of The WayAnd art already for nirvâna ripe:Gautama could not make a bolder claimWhen, conquering, he attained the Buddhaship.Yet meekly thou madest mention of pure grace,And merit all another's, not thine own.A paradox indeed, perplexing me,Such boldness mixed with such humility.""Yea," Paul said, "the humility it isThat makes the boldness thou hast found in me;It were defect of right humilityNot boldly to obey when Christ bids do.Christ bids me take His perfect righteousness;I can be humble but by taking it—Boldly? yea, or as if boldly, for hereHumility and boldness twain are one."
"To thee thy teacher Christ," said Krishna, "seemsSomething the same as Buddha is to me:Yet other, more; not teacher simply, ChristTo thee, and master, setter forth of wiseInstructions and commands obeying whichThou also now, as he once saved himself,Mayst thyself save through merit hardly earned.Thy Christ is will, not less than wisdom; powerAnd help, as well as guidance in the way.Sovereign creator and imparter, heSaves thee, thou trustest, through new life bestowed,Which makes thee other than thou wast before,And therefore frees thee from the fatal yokeAnd bondage of the karma thou hadst wonWith labor when thou wast the former man:The words are easy, but the sense is hard."
"Hard?" Paul said; "nay, outright impossibleTo any soul of man that still abidesHis old first natural self unchanged to new.Submit thyself unto the righteousnessOf God, and thou the mystery shalt knowWith knowledge deeper than the mind's most deepDivinings of the things she cannot speak."
"To fate, the universe, and necessity,"Said Krishna, "I submit, because I must.But to submit because I will, to any thing,Much more to any one, that is, give upMy will, which is my self, my very self,To be another's and no longer mine,Consent to be another person quiteThan I have been, and am, and wish to be—This thou proposest to me, if I takeRightly thy words to mean thou thus hast done,Becoming what thou art by vital changeFrom something different that thou wast before.I frankly tell thee I have not the powerSo to commute myself, had I the will."
"'I cannot' is 'I will not' here," said Paul;"No power is needful of thine own save will:Will, and thou canst; God then in thee is power.Consider, it is only to submit.""I feel my inmost will in me disdain,"Said Krishna, "this effacement of myself.""Yea, yea," said Paul, "it is the carnal mindIn thee, the primal unregenerate selfEver in all at enmity with God,Which is not subject to the law of God,Neither indeed can be; to be, were deathTo that old self which must resist, to live:The carnal mind is enmity to God;When enmity to God ceases in one,Then ceases in that one the carnal mind,The original man with his self-righteousnessHis karma, if thou please, his good, his ill.He is no more, and all that appertainsTo him is dead and buried out of sightForever; but there lives a second selfBy resurrection from that sepulcher—By fresh creation rather from the dead—A new regenerate man at one with God,For to the law of God agreed in will,Replaced the carnal with the spiritual mind,Warfare and death exchanged for life and peace."
Into Paul's voice, he ceasing with those words,There slid a cadence as of reverie:He seemed to muse so deeply what he saidThat he less said than felt it; 'life' and 'peace,'So spoken, no mere sounds upon the tongue,Were audible pulses of the living heart.Invasion thence of power seized Krishna's soul,And, 'Life and peace!' he murmured, 'Life and peace!'But said aloud: "Strange union, peace with life!Welook for peace only with death, last death,That death indeed beyond which nothing is,No further transmigration of the soul,No soul, no karma, all pure passionlessNon-being; not a state, since state impliesSome subject of a state, and here is none,To do or suffer or at all to be:Absolute zero, such the Buddhist's peace."
"'I am come,' Jesus said," so Paul replied,"'That ye might have life, more abundant life.'Life, life, deep stream and full, a river of God,Pours endless, boundless, from the heart of Christ;'Ho, every one that thirsteth, drink,' said He,'Lo, drink and live with mine eternal life.'"
"I fear fallacious promises of good,"Sighed Krishna; "life were good indeed with peace.But me, I hope not any good save flight,Save flight and refuge inaccessibleFrom persecuting and pursuing ill.Being is misery; I would cease to be;No hope have I, and no desire, but that.Hope is for children; I am not a childTo chase the ends of rainbows, seeking gold:There is no hope that does not make ashamed.I dare not hope, eagerly, even for death,Lest that likewise elude my clutch at last.Despair no less I shun; despair is naughtBut hope turned bitter and sour, postponed too long.I only seek to cease from hope, from fear,From every passion that can shake my calm.Calm is my good, and perfect calm is death,Therefore I wait for death with death-like calm.Thou wouldst disturb the calm with hope of life,Fair, but fallacious; let me alone to die."
With soft pathetic deprecation soKrishna, in form of words, half faltering, beggedFrom Paul no more, yet added: "I would hearSomething of what he was, thy master; whatHe did as well as taught; and whence he came,And when, and where, and how; and how he livedAnd died, having achieved his Buddhaship."
"For me," Paul said, "I never truly knewMy Master while He lived among us here,Almighty God incarnate in the formOf servant—glory and blessing to His name!—Though after He in triumph from the deadRose, and ascended far above all heightInto the heaven of heavens to be with God—Whence he had stooped the dreadful distance downTo His humiliation among men—Then He revealed Himself in power to me,And I beheld His face and heard His voice,And knew Him for co-equal Son of God.But thou, besides that in this power and gloryNo man may see Him save He show Himself,Wouldst wish a picture of the life He lived,The manner of man He was, while still on earth,The death He died, and how He died His death.There is one here among us well can drawThe living picture thou wouldst look upon,For she was with Him when He walked the waysOf Galilee and Jewry doing good;She saw Him suffer when by wicked handsHis blindfold yetmorewicked countrymen—Alas, among them I!—put Him to death.With early morning at His sepulcher,His emptied sepulcher, she weeping stoodAnd saw—but what she saw and all her taleOf Jesus as she knew and loved Him here,Is Mary Magdalené's right herselfWith her own lips and is her joy, to tell."
"Lord Buddha would not let a woman teach,"Indulging so much of recoil concealedAs might consist with utmost courtesySaid Krishna; but, with wise avoidance, Paul:"And Mary Magdalené will not teach,But only in simplicity with truthBear testimony of eye-witness howImmanuel Jesus lived His life on earth."
While thus they talked a movement on the deck,Words of command and bustle to obey,Betokened that the purpose was to leaveThe sheltered anchorage of The Havens FairAnd tempt the dangers of the winter deep.Paul saw it and suddenly broke off discourseWith Krishna, saying to him: "They err in this;Surely we here should winter. Let me speakA moment with the master of the ship."
Krishna with such surprise as disapprovedDimly in his immobile features shown,Watched while this intermeddling strange went on;Strange intermeddling ventured, strangely borne,Captive to captor bringing advice unsought;For Paul to the centurion also turnedWhen now the master and the owner bothAgreed against him; but that Roman choseLikewise his part with them to sail away.
A violent storm occurs and the vessel is wrecked. Krishna, having carefully noted the part that Paul takes in the rescue of the lives of all on board, and having noted besides the miracles performed by Paul on the island of Malta where they come safe to shore, brings himself to signify now his willingness to hear from Mary Magdalené her story of Jesus Christ. A company assemble, including, with the Christians, Julius as well as Krishna, and Mary begins her narrative. This after a time is interrupted by a peremptory summons from Felix to Paul, to which Paul responds in person.
SHIPWRECK.
The south wind softly blew a favoring breezeAs forth they put and stood for Italy:But that fair mother in her bosom boreOffspring of storm that hastened to the birth.For soon the fondling weather changed to fierce,And, blustering from the north, EuraquiloBeat down with all his wings upon the sea,Which under that rough brooding writhed in foamTo whirlpool ready to engulf the ship.No momentary tempest swift as wild;But blast of winter wanting never breathPoured from all quarters of the sky at onceAnd caught the vessel like a plaything upHurling it hither and thither athwart the deep.The sails were rent and shredded from the masts;The boat, to be the hope forlorn of life,Was hardly come by, so the hungry waveDesired it as a morsel to its maw.The ship through all her timbers groaned and shriekedAnd all her joints seemed melting with the frayAnd fracture of the jostling elements.At their wits' end, those mariners distraught,Feeling the deck dissolve beneath their feet,With undergirding helped the anguished ship;While, worse than waters waiting to devour,A sea of quicksand seethed, they knew, full nigh.So the night fell but brought no stay to storm;Fresh fury rather every darkening hour.The dismal daylight dawned, and wind and wave,Gnashing white teeth of foam, all round the shipHowled like wild beasts defeated of their prey.Then, as to bait those monster ravening mouths,They portion of the lading overboardFling, in the hope that lightened so the barkSpringing more buoyant may outride the storm.But the storm thickened as the third day dawned,And not the crew alone but all on boardWorked the ship's gear in the increasing gale.They thus bestead, the heavens above them loweredDay after day that neither sun nor starsOne instant flickered in the firmament;The blotted blackness made one dreadful nightOf day and night confounded in the gloom.Hope now went out, last light to leave the sky,Outburning sun and moon and star all quenchedBefore her in that drowning drench of dark—Hope too went out, touched by the hand of death.Then Paul stood forth, himself with fasting faint,Amid those famished faint despairing soulsAnd upward reaching high his hand to heaven,There kindled once again the star of hope.Chiding them fairly that they did not heedHis warning word betimes to shun that harm,He gave them cheer that they should yet escape,All should escape with life from this assay;Only the ship must suffer wreck and loss."The angel of the Lord, that Lord," said Paul,"Whose with all joy I am and whom I serve,As ye have seen, with worship night and day,Stood by me in the night and said to me:'Fear thou not, Paul; thou art to stand in RomeBefore the bar of Cæsar; lo, thy GodHath to thee given all those that sail with thee.'Be of good cheer then, ye; for I believeGod that He will perform His word to me.Upon an island look to find us cast."Full fourteen days the ship went staggering onA helpless hulk amid the Adrian sea,When now the sailors, deeming that they nearedSome coast-line, sounded in the midnight dark;Then farther drifting sounded once againTo find themselves indeed upon the shoals.Here, fearing to be driven upon rocks,They anchored, and so waiting wished for day.And now a dastard thing those sailors schemed:Under pretext to cast one anchor more,As to that purpose they let down the boat,Minded therein to steal their own escapeLeaving the rest to perish with the ship.But Paul perceived their fraud and subtletyAnd said to Julius with his soldiery;"Let those men go andyecannot be saved;"Whereon the soldiers cut the lowering ropes,Sending the boat to surf and reef a prey.As broke the fourteenth morning yet forlorn,Paul, unconfessed the captain of the shipAnd master of his fellow voyagers,In the dim twilight of the struggling dawnStood on the slippery deck amidst them allAnd stoutly cheered them to take heart of hopeBreak their long fast and brace themselves with food."For not a hair shall fall from off the headOf any one of you," said he, and tookTherewith himself, in act more eloquentThan spoken word, bread and gave thanks to GodIn presence of them all; then breaking itForthwith began to eat; this heartened themThat they likewise strengthened themselves with meat.Thus comforted, once more the laboring shipThey lighten of her lading and the wheatSow in the barren brine.The land descriedThey knew not, but there was no land unknownThat were not better than that wallowing sea.So, cutting loose their anchors, they made sailAnd drove the vessel aground upon a beach,Where the keel plunged into the yielding sandWhich closing heavy upon it held her fast;But the free stern rocked on the billowing surgeThat soon atwain must break her in the midst.Hardness of habit and of disciplinePartly, and partly a self-regarding fearLest they be held to answer with their lives,If even amid the mortal panic pangsOf shipwreck they should let their charge escape,Made now those Roman soldiers, in the jawsThemselves yet of the common peril hung,Ready to put their prisoners to the sword;But Julius stayed them for the sake of Paul."You that can swim," he shouted, "overboard!"Some thus, and some on spars buoyed up, and someOn other floatage of the breaking wreck,They all got safe to shore, not one soul lost.The master of the rescue still was Paul;Calm, but alert, completely self-possessed—(Possessor of himself, yet not himselfConsidering, save to sacrifice himselfFreely at need); his courage and his hopeInspiring hope and courage; self-commandIn him aweing the rest to self-command;His instinct instant and infallibleAmid the terror and the turbulence,—Winds howling and sea heaving and strait roomFor nigh three hundred souls in face of death!—Each moment seeing ere the moment passedWhat the need was and what the measure meetTo match it—that serene old man and highWas as an angel there descended whoCould had he chosen at once have stayed the storm,But rather chose to wield it as he would.The captain of the vessel and the manWhose was the vessel, these, with Julius too,Roman centurion as he was in charge,Grouped themselves close by Paul and heard his wordAnd had it heeded without stay by all."I shall be last to leave the ship," Paul cried,"Do therefore ye the things that I advise.The women first. Lady Drusilla, thouCommit thyself to four picked sailors, these"—The master of the vessel chose them out—"Two soldiers with them—Julius, by thy leaveAnd of thy choice—and on this ample sparSupported thou shalt safely come to land;And, Madam, thy little son shall go with thee."They lashed them to the timber, lowered it fair(With Felix desperately hugging it,The image of a sordid craven fear);The men detailed leapt overboard to it,And steering it as they could with feet and handsLet the sea wave on wave wash it ashore:She was indignant to be rescued so,But by abrupt necessity was tamed."Let me, I pray thee, save thy sister, Paul,"Said Sergius Paulus, who, assuming yea,Forthwith led Rachel—she with such a graceOf confidence in him as made him strongFollowing—to where a fragment of the deckDisjointed in the vessel's agonyLay loosened, which he clove and wrenched away;Then watching when the vessel listed rightAnd the sea met it with a slope of wave,They, this beneath them, clinging to it, slidDown the steep floor into the frothing brineStephen was by and helped them make the launch.Sergius, from the side opposite to her—To steady the light wreckage all he mightLest wanting balance it should overturn—Reaching across, kept Rachel's fingers claspedIn hold upon the wavering wood, until,What with his oarage and the wash of waves,They found a melting foothold on the sand.Krishna stood wishing to be serviceable,And when to Aristarchus, stout and brave,Paul was commending Mary, at a lookFrom the Indian that imported such desire,Leave was given him to undertake for Ruth.Each of the two life-savers rent a doorFrom off its hinges and thereon securedThe women awed in that extreme assayYet girded to a constancy of calm,And, Stephen helping, lowered them to the deep.Krishna was let down after by a rope,No swimmer he, but Ruth too held the ropeAnd drew him to the float whereon she tossed.Greek Aristarchus was a swimmer bornAnd practised, and he plunged headforemost down,Soon to emerge with easy buoyancyAnd aim unerring true where Mary rode.The two then—Aristarchus in the leadTeaching the Indian how, and, with the ropeFlung to his hand at his desire by RuthAnd by him featly bound about his waist,Drawing the floatage forward, while his ownHe pushed with swimming—won their way to shore.Twice Aristarchus was, for stress of wave,Fain to release his hold upon his float,So fierce the tug, and sudden, at his waist;But he, by swimming and by seamanshipConsummate joined to strength well-exercised,Strength by the exigence redoubled now,Both times regained it and thenceforward kept.Mary meanwhile, forsaken, faltered not;She felt the stay of other hands than his.All his advices and permissions PaulPut forth in such continuous sequence swiftThat well-nigh simultaneous all they seemed:The vessel swarmed with ordered movement mixed,And the sea lived with strugglers for the shore.Of all these only Simon had the coolCupidity and temerity to riskWeighting himself with treasure to bear offIn rescue from the wreck; he his loved gold,Ill-gotten gains of sorcery and of fraud,Secretly carried with him safe to land.Stephen did not lack helpers; Julius badeVarenus, of the soldiers, serve his wish;And Syrus, a young slave of Felix's,Sprang of his own free motion joyfullyTo help him pluck Eunicé out of scath;For he had marked the youthful Hebrew pairWith distant, upward-looking, loyal loveInstinctive toward such virtue and such grace.But, "Nay," Eunicé said, "not yet for me;See there those trembling creatures"—the hand-maidsOf dame Drusilla—"rescue first for them!"On a good splinter of the tall curved stem—The sign of Ceres at the gilded beak—By the rude violence of the shock torn offWhen the ship grounded, they tied the two slave girls;But the shipmaster fair Eunicé's actOf self-postponing nobleness admired,And bade two trusty seamen help let downThat beam life-laden soft into the seaWhither they, at the master's further word,Followed it, as with frolic leap to death,And brought it safely to the wave-washed shore.Then Stephen and Eunicé, each to eachAs if in a symbolic bond of fateLinked, with a length of rope allowing playBetween them for their wrestle with the surge,And having each in hold a wooden buoyProvided with what might be firmly grasped,Wieldy in size yet equal to supportThem safe above the summits of the sea,Were lowered by eager volunteers who allSped them to their endeavor for the land.They reached it and thanked God for life such prize.The soldiers that were bidden overboardTo take their chance of swimming to the beachBore with them lines which, stretched from ship to shore,Became the means of saving many souls;The most were thus, some buoyed on floats of wood,Some dragged half drowning through the sandy surf,Landed at last—forlorn, but yet alive.Paul was not, as he had his will to beAnnounced, quite last to leave the breaking bark;Centurion Julius would not have it so.When all except the owner of the shipAnd the shipmaster and himself with Paul(And Luke, who would not quit the apostle's side)Were safe ashore, he intervened for Paul.Now so it was, the mast to which was tiedThe rescue-line beneath the strain gave wayAnd fell with a great crash along the deck.On this those four made fast the brave old manWho with his counsel and his cheer had savedSo many, counting not his own life dearBut seen, the crisis of the need now past,Exhausted, tremulous, and nigh to sink.Then having with great strength—helped by a lurchThat now the vessel seasonably gave—Pushed smoothly overboard the noble sparEntrusted with that treasure of a life,Prompt they plunged after it into the brine,And having reached it, clung to it, and wellBuoyed up upon its surging lift, were borneThemselves with Paul by urgent wind and waveSafe to the beach, where those arrived beforeMet them with outstretched arms and cheers and tears.The island of their refuge and escapeWas Melita: the Melitans were kind,And though they spoke a tongue not understoodBy Hebrew, Greek, or Roman stranded there,And bore the name 'barbarian' from the Greek,Yet were they alien not; in deeds they usedA universal language of the heart.Kindling a fire, most grateful—for the rainFell drenching and the weather was windy cold—Those shipwrecked strangers all they entertained.Now so it happened that to Paul, he tooRanging to gather fuel where he couldAnd fetching soon a fagot to the fire,Sudden there sprang a viper from the heat,Warmed from his winter dormancy to life,And angry fastened hanging on his hand.The islanders beholding doubted notBut here some murderer, saved in vain from deathBy shipwreck, now was suffering vengeance due.Paul lightly shook the deadly reptile offInto the flames and felt no harm. But they,The islanders, kept jealous watch to seeThe dooméd victim of those fatal fangsSwell with the venom in his veins, or dropHaply at once a corpse upon the ground.After long disappointed watch, no signOf hurt perceived in Paul, they changed their mindAnd said among themselves, "He is a god."The chief man of the island, Publius,Houses and lands possessing in those parts,Gave Paul and his companions welcoming cheerIn three days' courteous hospitality—Not unrequited; for the father layWasting with fever and worse maladyIn the son's house; but Paul went in to himAnd prayed and laid his hands on him and heWas healed. Then others also of the sickAmong the Melitans came and were healed.So Paul had honors from them thrust on him;These he divided with a liberal handTo all, and when at last they left the isleThey went thence laden with a plenteous storeBestowed of what they needed on their way.But all the winter long they tarried there,Waiting for spring to open up the sea;And many an hour was theirs for various talk,They fenced in sunny places from the windOr grouped about their outdoor fires for cheer.The Indian Krishna, uncomplaining, bland,With that quick quiet eye which naught escapedAnd that deep-studying mind which rested never,Had slowly by degrees, considering allThat Paul wrought or was wrought through Paul, been won—Against a passive incredulityInert but stubborn and resistant still,The instinct and the habit of his mind—To judge that Jewish prisoner otherwiseThan when he hearing Paul give his adviceUnasked about the conduct of the voyageHad fixed on him the blame of meddlesome.He owned an awe of Paul's authorityExerted for the rescue of the livesOf those that sailed with him; he shared the powerOf hope and courage that went forth from Paul,His words, his deeds, and, more than either, himself.He did not quite escape some sense, inspiredBy Paul's thanksgiving when he broke the bread,Of other presence than Paul's own in PaulThat lifted him to higher than himself.When he saw Paul from his uninjured handShake that fell viper off into the fire,He half-confusedly thought: 'That seems not strange;Our Indian serpent-charmers do as much.'But when those gifts of healing flowed from Paul,Not singly, but in troops of miracleSufficing the whole island countryside,With only prayer and laying on of hands,Then at last Krishna said: 'I do not know,Is there some power in him greater than he?What power? Not Buddha, unconfessed, unknown,Yet willingly with that large tolerance hisAnd bounty and sweet unconcern to claimAcknowledgement of his gifts, working in PaulDespite—nay, Buddha not, he long agoPassed, and while living never power was he,Though wisdom manifold. Yea, wisdom is,That know I, power; but not the converse holds,That power is wisdom; and pure power it is,Not wisdom, that in Paul these wonders works;No healing arts he uses, no medicine.Whence is the power? Or what? Is Christ the power?'In sequel of communings such as theseHeld with himself, Krishna recalled the thoughtOf the rejected proffer made him lateBy Paul, of Mary's story of the Christ.He now would hear it, if but still he might;And so one calm bright day when winter smiledAs if in dream and vision of the spring,With proud repression of his natural prideHe brought himself to say to Paul: "O Paul,If thy friend Mary Magdalené yetWill deign so great a grace to me, who ownMy scant desert of it, I with all thanksWould hear her tell the story of her Lord,"A group of those who, loving and honoring her,Loved from her lips again and yet againTo hear the story, old but ever new,Of their belovéd Lord, were gathered then,With Sergius Paulus welcomed of their bandAnd Krishna and the kindly Julius too,In a recess sequestered of the shoreWhere the sun shining from the open southMade a sweet warmth at noon, and whence the sea,So capable of fierceness, now was seenWith many-sparkling wavelets beautifulAnd gentle in demeanor as a lamb.Cast in no mould of outward lovelinessTo lure the eye, but of a native worthSuch that her person noble seemed, and tallHer stature—all instinct with stately graceHer gesture and behavior—Mary satThat vernal winter noon amid her friends,Throneless and crownless, an unconscious queen:Yet over all in her that made her stateSeem regal there presided the effect,Other and finer, of a lofty mindArrived through sorrow to serenity,And in the heart of pathos finding peace.Such, Mary; who now thus took up her tale:"The story of my knowledge of the LordBegins in shadow, shadow of shame for me;At least I feel it for a kind of shameTo have been chosen of demons their abode;The recollection is a pang to me.I sometimes dare compare it in my mindWith what Paul suffers"—and she glanced toward PaulA holy look of reverence understood—"'Thorn in the flesh,' he calls it, but my thorn,Within my spirit rather, rankles there,As messenger of Satan buffeting meLest I should be exalted above measure—I, to whom Christ the Lord used first His voiceUttering that 'Mary!' when He from the deadRose in His glory. Surely I well should heedHow Mary, honored so, was the abodeOnce of seven demons. Why this should have beenI cannot tell, unless to humble me.Sometimes my pride—or is it sense of worth,Sacred and not rebukable as pride?—Whispers me, 'Mary, thou wert therefore choiceOf demons for their dwelling-place on earth,Because thou wert pure found and they desiredA refuge that should least resemble hell.'"Oh, how they rent me with their revelry,The hideous tumult of their joy in sin!And me they mixed up with their obscene mirth,Till half I doubted it was I myselfFoaming my own shame out from helpless lipsThat blasphemed God, then laughed with ribald glee.I was not mistress of my mind or heart;Reason in me was a distracted realm,And will and conscience seemed like ships at seaDriven with fierce winds and tossed toward hopeless wreck."I wonder at myself that I do notFight against God who strangely suffered it.But, never, never! He suffers many thingsStrangely, but I, this is His grace in me,Bow down at all of them, saying, 'Amen!'The crown of all my reasons for believingThat God is gracious, is that I believe.For why do I believe, except that HeMakes me believe, against so many signsSeen in the world abroad which swear in vainHe is not good? O, ever-blessed God,Who let those demons seven take up in meTheir lodgment, that they might be so dislodged!"On an accepted day for me the LordWas passing through the city where I dwelt,And one that knew my miserable caseImplored Him to have mercy upon me.He heard, He condescended, and He came.But how at His first footsteps of approach,How did those inmates evil within me rave!What riot, mixed of panic and despairAnd hatred! The whole land elect where ChristUpon this earth appeared, when He appearedWas rife with insurrection from the pitMad in attempt against Him. So in soulsPossessed by spirits from hell, if Christ drew nighOutrageous spasms of futile fury raged.Those demons seven in me usurped me nowWith tenfold more abominable rape.They with my fingers clutched and tore my hair;Gnashed with my teeth, and flickered with my tongue;They frothed from forth the corners of my mouthWith foul grimace and execrable grin;In random jaculation hither and thitherFlung my arms wildly like a windmill wroughtTo ruin in a whirlwind's vortices;Writhed all my bodily members, till I thought,With what of power to think was left to me,That surely nothing of corporeal mouldHad strength enough of life to suffer more."While Mary Magdalené told these things,Her noble face took on disfigurementExpressive of indignant horror and shame;And hardly had she been still beautifulBut for a pathos fine of gratitudeTenderly crescent in it to the full,That all was of the past, no present pain,Naught but a memory! When her aspect clearedAnd she composedly went on again,It was as if the full moon late eclipsedWith clouds rode from amid them forth sereneIn splendor, regent of the altered sky."Those were the pangs of my deliverance,The throes of evil possession overcome.'Come out of her!' He said; straight at that word,Rending me like a travail and a birth,They fled, and left me as one slain with wounds.But it was a delicious sense of death.I would be dead like that to be at peace!I hugged the death-like trance in which I lay,Until another word from the same voiceMade it seem sweeter yet to live indeed.'I say unto thee, Maid, arise!' I heardAnd I arose, obeying, I knew not how;It was as resurrection from the dead,Or first creation out of nothingness."The Indian bent on Mary telling allA fixed and eager heed that veiled itself,As wont was to this devotee of Buddh,Under a mask of face expressionless.He quenched in silence of quick second thoughtImpulses strong to speak and quit himselfOf doubts and questions starting in his mind.He abode mute, and Mary, after pauseFilled to each one with various thought, resumed"How glad was I, and grateful, when the LordPermitted me, with other women tooHealed by Him of distresses like to mine,To follow, in the ways of Galilee,His footsteps as He went from place to placeOn His unending rounds of doing good!He had not where to lay His head, was poorThough making many rich; and it was joyUnspeakable to us to ministerOut of our substance to His daily needs.'Give to us day by day our daily bread,'The prayer was that He taught us. God through usAnswered that prayer to Him and we were glad!"Not all those whom he cleansed of spirits foulInhabiting and defiling them did HePermit to follow with Him as they wished.One man, perhaps as sorely vexed as I,Being healed, entreated leave to stay with Him.It may be there was some defect of faith,Whence fear in him lest he, not with the Lord,Might again be invaded by that hostOf wicked angels whom he 'Legion' called,And Jesus out of kindness was austere,To exercise him to a better trustNeeding not crutch of sight to stay itself.I know not; this I know, and rest content,He doeth all things well, His choice is wise.The Master sent that man away, and bade:'Return to thine own house and publish thereHow great things God hath done to thee.' He wentAnd filled that favored city with the fame.Who knows? It may have been a better lot,More blesséd, to sound forth the Savior's praiseAnd thus prepare him welcome among men,As did that healed demoniac, than to be,As I was, near His person in the flesh.But nay, nor more nor less, no difference, allIs equal, and all blesséd perfectly,To all that simply meet His blesséd will!"Some subtle charm of eloquence, made upThe listener thought not how, thought not indeedThat there was any charm of eloquence—Manner perhaps, a flexure of the voice,Accent of clear simplicity with depth,A strand of pathos braided into it,The capture of an all-subduing eye—These things in her, but more than these, herself,Say rather the Spirit of God inhabiting her,Made Mary speaking irresistible.Krishna did not withstand the undoing spell,But yielded more and more, as still she spoke:"O, it was dreadful to behold his case,That demon-ridden man's! No clothes he wore,But fetters and chains instead, which could not bindHis frantic strength to hold him anywhere.Like a wild beast in lair he lived abroadHoused but in rocky hollows of the hills.No man dared pass his way, so fierce was he,Cutting himself with stones among the tombs.When he saw Jesus coming, still far off,He ran toward Him and prostrate worshipped Him,Crying with a most lamentable voice:'Lo, what have I to do with thee, O ThouJesus, Thou Son of God Most High? I pleadAnd I adjure Thee by the name of GodThat thou torment me not!' For Christ had said,'Thou unclean spirit, come thou forth from him!''What is thy name?' asked Jesus; and he said:'Legion, for we are many.'"What was strangeThen happened; for the demons prayed from ChristTo be not wholly banished from the land.'Send us,' they cried, 'into the swine'—for nearWere feeding a great herd of swine—and ChristGave them their whim to enter into them.Wherefore, I cannot tell; the SadduceesAmong our people had no faith in spirits,Angels or demons; so it may have beenTo show it no mere foolish fancy vain,As they, the Sadducees, had taught it was,That there are wicked beings, other than we,Unseen and spiritual, errant in the world,And that these sometimes truly may invadeThe holy of holies of the human mind,That sanctuary meant for God's indwelling,And wrest it to their own foul purposes.No Sadducee I trow had SadduceeRemained, that saw that day the hideous routMade when those swine, two thousand hoofs together,Rushed headlong down the lakeside precipiceTo perish in the waters; reason none,Save that the demons had gone into them.It was not sudden assault of epilepsy;"Those swine at least did not imagine it all!"—Over the face of Mary speaking nowA moment of sarcastic humor played—"A woman herself possessed, then dispossessed,Of demon inhabitants, may be forgivenA little natural scorn to be assuredThat she was only shaken in her wits!"And Mary so recovered with a smileThe sweet and holy candor of her face.But now an interruption—for there cameRudely, from Felix sent, a minion who,With little Felix following him, to PaulDrew nigh and said: "My master bids thee come,For Simon whom he honors has fallen sick,And he would have thee heal him." Summons suchDelivered in curt wise so insolent,Betrayed the master through the messenger."Go tell thy master that I come," said Paul;"Go thou, but leave the lad to come with me."So Paul took little Felix by the hand,He well-pleased equally to stay or goIn that benign companionship, and went.But first Paul said: "Perhaps the afternoonAlready is far spent enough, the coolAnd damp of evening will draw on apace;To-morrow, if God will—and Mary please—Our hearing of her tale may be renewed."They, thus dispersed, and slowly following, sawPaul like a guardian angel in the guiseOf a serene old man and venerableLead on the boy and heed his prattling talk.He had the ruffled spirits of his friends,Indignant all at Felix's affront,Composed with only his superior pureDetached Christ-like serenity and calm.
The south wind softly blew a favoring breezeAs forth they put and stood for Italy:But that fair mother in her bosom boreOffspring of storm that hastened to the birth.For soon the fondling weather changed to fierce,And, blustering from the north, EuraquiloBeat down with all his wings upon the sea,Which under that rough brooding writhed in foamTo whirlpool ready to engulf the ship.No momentary tempest swift as wild;But blast of winter wanting never breathPoured from all quarters of the sky at onceAnd caught the vessel like a plaything upHurling it hither and thither athwart the deep.The sails were rent and shredded from the masts;The boat, to be the hope forlorn of life,Was hardly come by, so the hungry waveDesired it as a morsel to its maw.The ship through all her timbers groaned and shriekedAnd all her joints seemed melting with the frayAnd fracture of the jostling elements.At their wits' end, those mariners distraught,Feeling the deck dissolve beneath their feet,With undergirding helped the anguished ship;While, worse than waters waiting to devour,A sea of quicksand seethed, they knew, full nigh.
So the night fell but brought no stay to storm;Fresh fury rather every darkening hour.
The dismal daylight dawned, and wind and wave,Gnashing white teeth of foam, all round the shipHowled like wild beasts defeated of their prey.Then, as to bait those monster ravening mouths,They portion of the lading overboardFling, in the hope that lightened so the barkSpringing more buoyant may outride the storm.
But the storm thickened as the third day dawned,And not the crew alone but all on boardWorked the ship's gear in the increasing gale.They thus bestead, the heavens above them loweredDay after day that neither sun nor starsOne instant flickered in the firmament;The blotted blackness made one dreadful nightOf day and night confounded in the gloom.Hope now went out, last light to leave the sky,Outburning sun and moon and star all quenchedBefore her in that drowning drench of dark—Hope too went out, touched by the hand of death.
Then Paul stood forth, himself with fasting faint,Amid those famished faint despairing soulsAnd upward reaching high his hand to heaven,There kindled once again the star of hope.Chiding them fairly that they did not heedHis warning word betimes to shun that harm,He gave them cheer that they should yet escape,All should escape with life from this assay;Only the ship must suffer wreck and loss."The angel of the Lord, that Lord," said Paul,"Whose with all joy I am and whom I serve,As ye have seen, with worship night and day,Stood by me in the night and said to me:'Fear thou not, Paul; thou art to stand in RomeBefore the bar of Cæsar; lo, thy GodHath to thee given all those that sail with thee.'Be of good cheer then, ye; for I believeGod that He will perform His word to me.Upon an island look to find us cast."
Full fourteen days the ship went staggering onA helpless hulk amid the Adrian sea,When now the sailors, deeming that they nearedSome coast-line, sounded in the midnight dark;Then farther drifting sounded once againTo find themselves indeed upon the shoals.Here, fearing to be driven upon rocks,They anchored, and so waiting wished for day.
And now a dastard thing those sailors schemed:Under pretext to cast one anchor more,As to that purpose they let down the boat,Minded therein to steal their own escapeLeaving the rest to perish with the ship.But Paul perceived their fraud and subtletyAnd said to Julius with his soldiery;"Let those men go andyecannot be saved;"Whereon the soldiers cut the lowering ropes,Sending the boat to surf and reef a prey.
As broke the fourteenth morning yet forlorn,Paul, unconfessed the captain of the shipAnd master of his fellow voyagers,In the dim twilight of the struggling dawnStood on the slippery deck amidst them allAnd stoutly cheered them to take heart of hopeBreak their long fast and brace themselves with food."For not a hair shall fall from off the headOf any one of you," said he, and tookTherewith himself, in act more eloquentThan spoken word, bread and gave thanks to GodIn presence of them all; then breaking itForthwith began to eat; this heartened themThat they likewise strengthened themselves with meat.Thus comforted, once more the laboring shipThey lighten of her lading and the wheatSow in the barren brine.
The land descriedThey knew not, but there was no land unknownThat were not better than that wallowing sea.So, cutting loose their anchors, they made sailAnd drove the vessel aground upon a beach,Where the keel plunged into the yielding sandWhich closing heavy upon it held her fast;But the free stern rocked on the billowing surgeThat soon atwain must break her in the midst.
Hardness of habit and of disciplinePartly, and partly a self-regarding fearLest they be held to answer with their lives,If even amid the mortal panic pangsOf shipwreck they should let their charge escape,Made now those Roman soldiers, in the jawsThemselves yet of the common peril hung,Ready to put their prisoners to the sword;But Julius stayed them for the sake of Paul."You that can swim," he shouted, "overboard!"Some thus, and some on spars buoyed up, and someOn other floatage of the breaking wreck,They all got safe to shore, not one soul lost.
The master of the rescue still was Paul;Calm, but alert, completely self-possessed—(Possessor of himself, yet not himselfConsidering, save to sacrifice himselfFreely at need); his courage and his hopeInspiring hope and courage; self-commandIn him aweing the rest to self-command;His instinct instant and infallibleAmid the terror and the turbulence,—Winds howling and sea heaving and strait roomFor nigh three hundred souls in face of death!—Each moment seeing ere the moment passedWhat the need was and what the measure meetTo match it—that serene old man and highWas as an angel there descended whoCould had he chosen at once have stayed the storm,But rather chose to wield it as he would.
The captain of the vessel and the manWhose was the vessel, these, with Julius too,Roman centurion as he was in charge,Grouped themselves close by Paul and heard his wordAnd had it heeded without stay by all."I shall be last to leave the ship," Paul cried,"Do therefore ye the things that I advise.The women first. Lady Drusilla, thouCommit thyself to four picked sailors, these"—The master of the vessel chose them out—"Two soldiers with them—Julius, by thy leaveAnd of thy choice—and on this ample sparSupported thou shalt safely come to land;And, Madam, thy little son shall go with thee."They lashed them to the timber, lowered it fair(With Felix desperately hugging it,The image of a sordid craven fear);The men detailed leapt overboard to it,And steering it as they could with feet and handsLet the sea wave on wave wash it ashore:She was indignant to be rescued so,But by abrupt necessity was tamed.
"Let me, I pray thee, save thy sister, Paul,"Said Sergius Paulus, who, assuming yea,Forthwith led Rachel—she with such a graceOf confidence in him as made him strongFollowing—to where a fragment of the deckDisjointed in the vessel's agonyLay loosened, which he clove and wrenched away;Then watching when the vessel listed rightAnd the sea met it with a slope of wave,They, this beneath them, clinging to it, slidDown the steep floor into the frothing brineStephen was by and helped them make the launch.Sergius, from the side opposite to her—To steady the light wreckage all he mightLest wanting balance it should overturn—Reaching across, kept Rachel's fingers claspedIn hold upon the wavering wood, until,What with his oarage and the wash of waves,They found a melting foothold on the sand.
Krishna stood wishing to be serviceable,And when to Aristarchus, stout and brave,Paul was commending Mary, at a lookFrom the Indian that imported such desire,Leave was given him to undertake for Ruth.Each of the two life-savers rent a doorFrom off its hinges and thereon securedThe women awed in that extreme assayYet girded to a constancy of calm,And, Stephen helping, lowered them to the deep.Krishna was let down after by a rope,No swimmer he, but Ruth too held the ropeAnd drew him to the float whereon she tossed.Greek Aristarchus was a swimmer bornAnd practised, and he plunged headforemost down,Soon to emerge with easy buoyancyAnd aim unerring true where Mary rode.The two then—Aristarchus in the leadTeaching the Indian how, and, with the ropeFlung to his hand at his desire by RuthAnd by him featly bound about his waist,Drawing the floatage forward, while his ownHe pushed with swimming—won their way to shore.Twice Aristarchus was, for stress of wave,Fain to release his hold upon his float,So fierce the tug, and sudden, at his waist;But he, by swimming and by seamanshipConsummate joined to strength well-exercised,Strength by the exigence redoubled now,Both times regained it and thenceforward kept.Mary meanwhile, forsaken, faltered not;She felt the stay of other hands than his.
All his advices and permissions PaulPut forth in such continuous sequence swiftThat well-nigh simultaneous all they seemed:The vessel swarmed with ordered movement mixed,And the sea lived with strugglers for the shore.Of all these only Simon had the coolCupidity and temerity to riskWeighting himself with treasure to bear offIn rescue from the wreck; he his loved gold,Ill-gotten gains of sorcery and of fraud,Secretly carried with him safe to land.
Stephen did not lack helpers; Julius badeVarenus, of the soldiers, serve his wish;And Syrus, a young slave of Felix's,Sprang of his own free motion joyfullyTo help him pluck Eunicé out of scath;For he had marked the youthful Hebrew pairWith distant, upward-looking, loyal loveInstinctive toward such virtue and such grace.But, "Nay," Eunicé said, "not yet for me;See there those trembling creatures"—the hand-maidsOf dame Drusilla—"rescue first for them!"On a good splinter of the tall curved stem—The sign of Ceres at the gilded beak—By the rude violence of the shock torn offWhen the ship grounded, they tied the two slave girls;But the shipmaster fair Eunicé's actOf self-postponing nobleness admired,And bade two trusty seamen help let downThat beam life-laden soft into the seaWhither they, at the master's further word,Followed it, as with frolic leap to death,And brought it safely to the wave-washed shore.Then Stephen and Eunicé, each to eachAs if in a symbolic bond of fateLinked, with a length of rope allowing playBetween them for their wrestle with the surge,And having each in hold a wooden buoyProvided with what might be firmly grasped,Wieldy in size yet equal to supportThem safe above the summits of the sea,Were lowered by eager volunteers who allSped them to their endeavor for the land.They reached it and thanked God for life such prize.
The soldiers that were bidden overboardTo take their chance of swimming to the beachBore with them lines which, stretched from ship to shore,Became the means of saving many souls;The most were thus, some buoyed on floats of wood,Some dragged half drowning through the sandy surf,Landed at last—forlorn, but yet alive.
Paul was not, as he had his will to beAnnounced, quite last to leave the breaking bark;Centurion Julius would not have it so.When all except the owner of the shipAnd the shipmaster and himself with Paul(And Luke, who would not quit the apostle's side)Were safe ashore, he intervened for Paul.Now so it was, the mast to which was tiedThe rescue-line beneath the strain gave wayAnd fell with a great crash along the deck.On this those four made fast the brave old manWho with his counsel and his cheer had savedSo many, counting not his own life dearBut seen, the crisis of the need now past,Exhausted, tremulous, and nigh to sink.Then having with great strength—helped by a lurchThat now the vessel seasonably gave—Pushed smoothly overboard the noble sparEntrusted with that treasure of a life,Prompt they plunged after it into the brine,And having reached it, clung to it, and wellBuoyed up upon its surging lift, were borneThemselves with Paul by urgent wind and waveSafe to the beach, where those arrived beforeMet them with outstretched arms and cheers and tears.
The island of their refuge and escapeWas Melita: the Melitans were kind,And though they spoke a tongue not understoodBy Hebrew, Greek, or Roman stranded there,And bore the name 'barbarian' from the Greek,Yet were they alien not; in deeds they usedA universal language of the heart.Kindling a fire, most grateful—for the rainFell drenching and the weather was windy cold—Those shipwrecked strangers all they entertained.
Now so it happened that to Paul, he tooRanging to gather fuel where he couldAnd fetching soon a fagot to the fire,Sudden there sprang a viper from the heat,Warmed from his winter dormancy to life,And angry fastened hanging on his hand.The islanders beholding doubted notBut here some murderer, saved in vain from deathBy shipwreck, now was suffering vengeance due.Paul lightly shook the deadly reptile offInto the flames and felt no harm. But they,The islanders, kept jealous watch to seeThe dooméd victim of those fatal fangsSwell with the venom in his veins, or dropHaply at once a corpse upon the ground.After long disappointed watch, no signOf hurt perceived in Paul, they changed their mindAnd said among themselves, "He is a god."
The chief man of the island, Publius,Houses and lands possessing in those parts,Gave Paul and his companions welcoming cheerIn three days' courteous hospitality—Not unrequited; for the father layWasting with fever and worse maladyIn the son's house; but Paul went in to himAnd prayed and laid his hands on him and heWas healed. Then others also of the sickAmong the Melitans came and were healed.So Paul had honors from them thrust on him;These he divided with a liberal handTo all, and when at last they left the isleThey went thence laden with a plenteous storeBestowed of what they needed on their way.But all the winter long they tarried there,Waiting for spring to open up the sea;And many an hour was theirs for various talk,They fenced in sunny places from the windOr grouped about their outdoor fires for cheer.
The Indian Krishna, uncomplaining, bland,With that quick quiet eye which naught escapedAnd that deep-studying mind which rested never,Had slowly by degrees, considering allThat Paul wrought or was wrought through Paul, been won—Against a passive incredulityInert but stubborn and resistant still,The instinct and the habit of his mind—To judge that Jewish prisoner otherwiseThan when he hearing Paul give his adviceUnasked about the conduct of the voyageHad fixed on him the blame of meddlesome.He owned an awe of Paul's authorityExerted for the rescue of the livesOf those that sailed with him; he shared the powerOf hope and courage that went forth from Paul,His words, his deeds, and, more than either, himself.He did not quite escape some sense, inspiredBy Paul's thanksgiving when he broke the bread,Of other presence than Paul's own in PaulThat lifted him to higher than himself.When he saw Paul from his uninjured handShake that fell viper off into the fire,He half-confusedly thought: 'That seems not strange;Our Indian serpent-charmers do as much.'But when those gifts of healing flowed from Paul,Not singly, but in troops of miracleSufficing the whole island countryside,With only prayer and laying on of hands,Then at last Krishna said: 'I do not know,Is there some power in him greater than he?What power? Not Buddha, unconfessed, unknown,Yet willingly with that large tolerance hisAnd bounty and sweet unconcern to claimAcknowledgement of his gifts, working in PaulDespite—nay, Buddha not, he long agoPassed, and while living never power was he,Though wisdom manifold. Yea, wisdom is,That know I, power; but not the converse holds,That power is wisdom; and pure power it is,Not wisdom, that in Paul these wonders works;No healing arts he uses, no medicine.Whence is the power? Or what? Is Christ the power?'
In sequel of communings such as theseHeld with himself, Krishna recalled the thoughtOf the rejected proffer made him lateBy Paul, of Mary's story of the Christ.He now would hear it, if but still he might;And so one calm bright day when winter smiledAs if in dream and vision of the spring,With proud repression of his natural prideHe brought himself to say to Paul: "O Paul,If thy friend Mary Magdalené yetWill deign so great a grace to me, who ownMy scant desert of it, I with all thanksWould hear her tell the story of her Lord,"A group of those who, loving and honoring her,Loved from her lips again and yet againTo hear the story, old but ever new,Of their belovéd Lord, were gathered then,With Sergius Paulus welcomed of their bandAnd Krishna and the kindly Julius too,In a recess sequestered of the shoreWhere the sun shining from the open southMade a sweet warmth at noon, and whence the sea,So capable of fierceness, now was seenWith many-sparkling wavelets beautifulAnd gentle in demeanor as a lamb.
Cast in no mould of outward lovelinessTo lure the eye, but of a native worthSuch that her person noble seemed, and tallHer stature—all instinct with stately graceHer gesture and behavior—Mary satThat vernal winter noon amid her friends,Throneless and crownless, an unconscious queen:Yet over all in her that made her stateSeem regal there presided the effect,Other and finer, of a lofty mindArrived through sorrow to serenity,And in the heart of pathos finding peace.Such, Mary; who now thus took up her tale:"The story of my knowledge of the LordBegins in shadow, shadow of shame for me;At least I feel it for a kind of shameTo have been chosen of demons their abode;The recollection is a pang to me.I sometimes dare compare it in my mindWith what Paul suffers"—and she glanced toward PaulA holy look of reverence understood—"'Thorn in the flesh,' he calls it, but my thorn,Within my spirit rather, rankles there,As messenger of Satan buffeting meLest I should be exalted above measure—I, to whom Christ the Lord used first His voiceUttering that 'Mary!' when He from the deadRose in His glory. Surely I well should heedHow Mary, honored so, was the abodeOnce of seven demons. Why this should have beenI cannot tell, unless to humble me.Sometimes my pride—or is it sense of worth,Sacred and not rebukable as pride?—Whispers me, 'Mary, thou wert therefore choiceOf demons for their dwelling-place on earth,Because thou wert pure found and they desiredA refuge that should least resemble hell.'
"Oh, how they rent me with their revelry,The hideous tumult of their joy in sin!And me they mixed up with their obscene mirth,Till half I doubted it was I myselfFoaming my own shame out from helpless lipsThat blasphemed God, then laughed with ribald glee.I was not mistress of my mind or heart;Reason in me was a distracted realm,And will and conscience seemed like ships at seaDriven with fierce winds and tossed toward hopeless wreck.
"I wonder at myself that I do notFight against God who strangely suffered it.But, never, never! He suffers many thingsStrangely, but I, this is His grace in me,Bow down at all of them, saying, 'Amen!'The crown of all my reasons for believingThat God is gracious, is that I believe.For why do I believe, except that HeMakes me believe, against so many signsSeen in the world abroad which swear in vainHe is not good? O, ever-blessed God,Who let those demons seven take up in meTheir lodgment, that they might be so dislodged!
"On an accepted day for me the LordWas passing through the city where I dwelt,And one that knew my miserable caseImplored Him to have mercy upon me.He heard, He condescended, and He came.But how at His first footsteps of approach,How did those inmates evil within me rave!What riot, mixed of panic and despairAnd hatred! The whole land elect where ChristUpon this earth appeared, when He appearedWas rife with insurrection from the pitMad in attempt against Him. So in soulsPossessed by spirits from hell, if Christ drew nighOutrageous spasms of futile fury raged.Those demons seven in me usurped me nowWith tenfold more abominable rape.They with my fingers clutched and tore my hair;Gnashed with my teeth, and flickered with my tongue;They frothed from forth the corners of my mouthWith foul grimace and execrable grin;In random jaculation hither and thitherFlung my arms wildly like a windmill wroughtTo ruin in a whirlwind's vortices;Writhed all my bodily members, till I thought,With what of power to think was left to me,That surely nothing of corporeal mouldHad strength enough of life to suffer more."
While Mary Magdalené told these things,Her noble face took on disfigurementExpressive of indignant horror and shame;And hardly had she been still beautifulBut for a pathos fine of gratitudeTenderly crescent in it to the full,That all was of the past, no present pain,Naught but a memory! When her aspect clearedAnd she composedly went on again,It was as if the full moon late eclipsedWith clouds rode from amid them forth sereneIn splendor, regent of the altered sky."Those were the pangs of my deliverance,The throes of evil possession overcome.'Come out of her!' He said; straight at that word,Rending me like a travail and a birth,They fled, and left me as one slain with wounds.But it was a delicious sense of death.I would be dead like that to be at peace!I hugged the death-like trance in which I lay,Until another word from the same voiceMade it seem sweeter yet to live indeed.'I say unto thee, Maid, arise!' I heardAnd I arose, obeying, I knew not how;It was as resurrection from the dead,Or first creation out of nothingness."
The Indian bent on Mary telling allA fixed and eager heed that veiled itself,As wont was to this devotee of Buddh,Under a mask of face expressionless.He quenched in silence of quick second thoughtImpulses strong to speak and quit himselfOf doubts and questions starting in his mind.He abode mute, and Mary, after pauseFilled to each one with various thought, resumed"How glad was I, and grateful, when the LordPermitted me, with other women tooHealed by Him of distresses like to mine,To follow, in the ways of Galilee,His footsteps as He went from place to placeOn His unending rounds of doing good!He had not where to lay His head, was poorThough making many rich; and it was joyUnspeakable to us to ministerOut of our substance to His daily needs.'Give to us day by day our daily bread,'The prayer was that He taught us. God through usAnswered that prayer to Him and we were glad!
"Not all those whom he cleansed of spirits foulInhabiting and defiling them did HePermit to follow with Him as they wished.One man, perhaps as sorely vexed as I,Being healed, entreated leave to stay with Him.It may be there was some defect of faith,Whence fear in him lest he, not with the Lord,Might again be invaded by that hostOf wicked angels whom he 'Legion' called,And Jesus out of kindness was austere,To exercise him to a better trustNeeding not crutch of sight to stay itself.I know not; this I know, and rest content,He doeth all things well, His choice is wise.The Master sent that man away, and bade:'Return to thine own house and publish thereHow great things God hath done to thee.' He wentAnd filled that favored city with the fame.Who knows? It may have been a better lot,More blesséd, to sound forth the Savior's praiseAnd thus prepare him welcome among men,As did that healed demoniac, than to be,As I was, near His person in the flesh.But nay, nor more nor less, no difference, allIs equal, and all blesséd perfectly,To all that simply meet His blesséd will!"
Some subtle charm of eloquence, made upThe listener thought not how, thought not indeedThat there was any charm of eloquence—Manner perhaps, a flexure of the voice,Accent of clear simplicity with depth,A strand of pathos braided into it,The capture of an all-subduing eye—These things in her, but more than these, herself,Say rather the Spirit of God inhabiting her,Made Mary speaking irresistible.Krishna did not withstand the undoing spell,But yielded more and more, as still she spoke:"O, it was dreadful to behold his case,That demon-ridden man's! No clothes he wore,But fetters and chains instead, which could not bindHis frantic strength to hold him anywhere.Like a wild beast in lair he lived abroadHoused but in rocky hollows of the hills.No man dared pass his way, so fierce was he,Cutting himself with stones among the tombs.When he saw Jesus coming, still far off,He ran toward Him and prostrate worshipped Him,Crying with a most lamentable voice:'Lo, what have I to do with thee, O ThouJesus, Thou Son of God Most High? I pleadAnd I adjure Thee by the name of GodThat thou torment me not!' For Christ had said,'Thou unclean spirit, come thou forth from him!''What is thy name?' asked Jesus; and he said:'Legion, for we are many.'
"What was strangeThen happened; for the demons prayed from ChristTo be not wholly banished from the land.'Send us,' they cried, 'into the swine'—for nearWere feeding a great herd of swine—and ChristGave them their whim to enter into them.Wherefore, I cannot tell; the SadduceesAmong our people had no faith in spirits,Angels or demons; so it may have beenTo show it no mere foolish fancy vain,As they, the Sadducees, had taught it was,That there are wicked beings, other than we,Unseen and spiritual, errant in the world,And that these sometimes truly may invadeThe holy of holies of the human mind,That sanctuary meant for God's indwelling,And wrest it to their own foul purposes.No Sadducee I trow had SadduceeRemained, that saw that day the hideous routMade when those swine, two thousand hoofs together,Rushed headlong down the lakeside precipiceTo perish in the waters; reason none,Save that the demons had gone into them.It was not sudden assault of epilepsy;"Those swine at least did not imagine it all!"—Over the face of Mary speaking nowA moment of sarcastic humor played—"A woman herself possessed, then dispossessed,Of demon inhabitants, may be forgivenA little natural scorn to be assuredThat she was only shaken in her wits!"And Mary so recovered with a smileThe sweet and holy candor of her face.
But now an interruption—for there cameRudely, from Felix sent, a minion who,With little Felix following him, to PaulDrew nigh and said: "My master bids thee come,For Simon whom he honors has fallen sick,And he would have thee heal him." Summons suchDelivered in curt wise so insolent,Betrayed the master through the messenger."Go tell thy master that I come," said Paul;"Go thou, but leave the lad to come with me."
So Paul took little Felix by the hand,He well-pleased equally to stay or goIn that benign companionship, and went.But first Paul said: "Perhaps the afternoonAlready is far spent enough, the coolAnd damp of evening will draw on apace;To-morrow, if God will—and Mary please—Our hearing of her tale may be renewed."
They, thus dispersed, and slowly following, sawPaul like a guardian angel in the guiseOf a serene old man and venerableLead on the boy and heed his prattling talk.He had the ruffled spirits of his friends,Indignant all at Felix's affront,Composed with only his superior pureDetached Christ-like serenity and calm.