Paul

Paul the apostle, on the sacred hill Of Mars at Athens, felt a hidden will Working against his gospel. That was old (It seemed), yet had the thrust of boyhood cold, Yet tempered in wild fires, and sensing this He prayed in silence. The Acropolis, Making a final bid for beauty, took The dying sun to her heart with the wild look As of a woman yielding to her lover; And he in flame confederate leaning over With armfuls of clouded roses, blossom on blossom, Rifled the sweets of evening, and for her bosom Dismantling heaven’s high pavilion With tumbled beauties wooed her thus and won.

This Paul from prayer rising saw, nor cared, Watching a Cross in the East, if these had snared The West with meshes trailing from the wrist Of Venus, also an Evangelist. “So little is the conquest of the flesh, So like a spinner, weaving her small mesh —And a boy tears it as he passes by— Embroiders fruitlessly her tapestry The Paphian woman, and the threads are thin And ghostly as the new light enters in— The tapestry that was the world and all The curtain Jesus tears aside” says Paul: “What is there worshipful here? These skies are fleeting, This beauty made by hands of the sun is beating Into the night that swallows her, and none Is warm, when night has fallen, with the sun; And the whole frame of the celestial Firmament, though dusted with the stars, must fall As being under death, and change in Hell, When death is conquered, her corruptible Beauty, and at the trumpet’s sound put on, As ye must also, incorruption.” And while he spoke the curtain of the sky Night fretted with the cool embroidery Of stars, and the moon upon her silent spindle Did all the velvet warp to silver kindle. But a young man of the philosophers, Who stood about him, said “The moonlight stirs With beauty in the heart, and in the mind The things that seem do such a glory find Lit with this wonder of the moon and star, As almost to persuade us that they are, But these we know are broken images Of patterns laid-up in heaven. Socrates, A citizen of Athens, was betrayed To death for teaching this, and smiling laid His cup of hemlock down, because his heart Already of eternity was part, And death for such is freedom. Yet for this He did surrender the Acropolis, That had all Hellas for a coronet About her forehead radiantly set, Island on island, and for this forsook The friendship of his friends, his dreams, the look Of hesitating spring that dare not stay Yet will not leave the hills of Attica. For this all gifts, all memories, he gave Freely believing that the narrow grave Was the end of all. Thus he passed out alone, Content to face the gods no man had known Because they beggar knowledge, and persuaded It was enough, that, when for him had faded The light, for us his death a light had lit Would shew a path and we might walk by it. ‘This is the spirit of man; in vain it reaches Beyond the limits ordained and vainly stretches To where truth, beauty, goodness, three in one, Find each in all supreme communion. For what is greater than we know,’ he said ‘It is well to die,’ and smiling he was dead. This he believed, all this he sacrificed. Did he teach better, Jew, whom you call Christ?”

A cloud passed by the moon, and no one spoke, Till suddenly her silver spear-head broke The cloudy targe, and leaning from the place She has in heaven struck with light the face Of Pheidias’ god. And Paul cried “Even thus Ye have your answer, superstitious Who set this idol up, and worshipped it In darkness, and behold the face is lit With fire from on high. A period Is set to ignorance and to the god Ye ignorantly worship, and the stone Or marble of the god ye have not known, Changes beneath my hand and in my speech Unto the living god I know and preach. Do you rejoice because that Socrates Died facing death and dark? I tell you these In Christ are conquered. Death has lost her sting, The dark her victory, and angels sing At the empty mouth of the grave, because my king Has made the grave a refuge and protection From the pain of living by His resurrection. Socrates sleeps; the god he did not know Sleeps with him, and long since the grasses grow Above their resting place, but flowers reach In vain their roots to find Him whom I preach. He is not there, but though we darkly see, As in a glass, his immortality Waits for us all, and beckons in the place Where we who find Him see Him face to face. Socrates, to death a prisoner, did well, But death was all; Christ by the miracle Of the open grave, his deity forsaken, For all the world has death a prisoner taken. Nor Socrates in vain all sacrificed If here his fruitless death has pled for Christ.” Dionysius the Areopagite Cried loudly unto Paul “Were it not right To shatter on his marble pedestal This idol that has stood for death?” and Paul Answered “What say ye brethren, for His sake Who vanquished death shall we the idol break?” But even as Paul raised his hand the light Faded upon the sculptured face. The night Cloaked it, and, though Paul pressed, the threatened blow Hung in the air and fell not. For a low Strange glory changed upon the face, and seemed A face that Paul had seen before or dreamed To see when near Damascus, and instead Of Pheidias’ god unknown another Head Sorrowful-sweet on Paul astonished shone And, ere his threatening hand could fall, was gone. But a voice whispered “Art thou after all Thine unknown God still persecuting, Saul?”