His Lady of the Sonnets Part 4

A lad is singing somewhere in the street; His voice, careless and free, recalls Cilicia-- Tarsus, my city, where the Cydnus flows-- Recalls those first, far days when in my heart No pain had found a place, and I was Saul-- Named for the Son of Kish--A Benjamite.

How swiftly Age turns back the gate of Time, And with what eager pace pursues the path Trod by the feet of Childhood! I can see The scarlet-prowed Phenician s.h.i.+ps, triremes Down from the Tiber, and Egyptian barges, Abundant fruitage of the date and palm, Tall, Bacchic amphora, and perfumed bales Of Tyrian purple, stand along the quay; And I can hear the sailors and their songs, The strange, brown mariners of many seas, With arms like anchor-cables in their strength: Oh, then was I a wanderer of earth, And dreamed of brave adventure in far lands!

They say the Hebrew burning in my blood Closed all life's doors, save one, upon the world; That I, the Pharisee of Pharisees, Contemned the beauty and the song of Greece!

How little do they know, my Timothy, My dear disciple, and my bosom friend, Heart, soul, feet, hands, eyes, ears, and lips of Paul, How little do they know!

To-morrow morn Without the city wall I shall kneel down Before the Roman sword and die!

O Death, Where is thy sting? O Grave....

The lad still sings!

Would thou could hear his song: Anacreon?

Nay; Sappho! He? Athenian, I think.

'Tis such a voice as that which Eunice heard-- Son of the Faith once and for all delivered-- Oft in the streets of Lystra's eventide, Telling of Timothy returning home, Or ever thou didst follow Christ and Paul.

Why doth he sing, and hale me back to life Who on the morn must die? And Sappho's song!

Flee from this wicked world ordained to death!

The wrath of G.o.d is kindled in the sky, And Babylon shall be consumed in smoke!

How all the gold has gone from out the west: 'Tis crimson now, and on the Forum falls A menace as of blood!

O Babylon, The cup of thine iniquity is full, And runneth over even to the ground!

Still doth he sing; and always Sappho's song!

O Greece, the tongue of Homer and of Paul Is in that song! Behold, the sound thereof Goes forth unto the ends of all the world; And neither speech nor language shall prevail Upon its magic and its mastery!

How little do they know, son Timothy, Of Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ.

A Pharisee? Yea, straitest of that sect.

Learned in the law? Aye, from Gamaliel.

And persecutor of the Church of G.o.d?

Saul who consented unto Stephen's death!

Ah, woe is me! Yet little do they know, Who know not this: the law of sin and death Is done away in Christ, by Whom all things Are sanctified; and neither Jew nor Greek, And neither bond nor free, exist in Him Who is the First Begotten Son of G.o.d, The Keystone of life's slow-ascending arch, And Who completeth all things in Himself.

Nathless, I found this truth not easily: In those far boyhood days beside the Cydnus, Watching the sailors and the s.h.i.+ps, I felt Shame of my pa.s.sion for the many tones And tinctures of the coloured sails and prows, Shame at the tumult in my heart at songs Sung by the boatmen; for the law is hard, And presseth with a heavy hand upon Youth and the innocent delights of youth.

Young Rabbi Saul the Thunderer, and Saul Consenting unto Stephen's death, are dead; Slain by the piercing of the Cross of Christ!

Christ of the lilies--He Who loved the fields, And heard the children in the market place Complaining at the unresponsive feet, And ears deaf to their piping and sweet song.

Doth He know my lad singing in the street-- My young Athenian, whose voice for Paul Breathes _Ave atque Vale_ on the world?

Christ is not quickly learned; and gradual Is the progression of a soul to Him.

Hard strove I through the barriers of thought, And one by one dissolved the old ideas That misted o'er the mountains of desire, Before I found that all things beautiful, Like lilies of the open field, are spread Beneath the benediction of His love.

Write this again: _There is no bond nor free!_ This is the Faith; and this is Jesus Christ, The Saviour of the world!

Think what it means, O Timothy, this Faith thou hast received To give and guard at Ephesus. Let fall Distinctions from henceforth, and keep in one The diverse aspirations of mankind.

Jerusalem and Alexandria, Rome, Athens, Corinth and Iconium, Moses and Socrates, Plato and Paul, Isaiah, Homer, and Euripides, Bezaleel and thine own Phidias, David and Sappho--all are in His heart!

Thou wilt remember what I lately wrote-- The feet of him who bears that letter speed, As sped Pheidippides--"All inspired Scripture Is given of G.o.d;" for nothing beautiful Lives but by breathing of the Holy Ghost.

Force is of Satan; Art the child of G.o.d; And they, who like this foredoomed Babylon Build citadels cemented by men's blood, Are numbered with the d.a.m.ned!

Do I not know?

Am I not Paul, the prisoner of Christ?

Creators of sweet sounds and lovely forms Care not for Babylon; they seek the hills, And know G.o.d in the thunders of the seas; They find Him where pomegranate and the pine Are pa.s.sionate with pleading of all souls That are with dross of earth unsatisfied.

This have I learned from the Athenian Who sings the song of Sappho unto Paul.

Gone are the gold and scarlet from the west; Night falls; and Rome is like the Galaxy-- Indefinite with stars. A myriad Of tiny flames are flaring on the hills; And in those evening fires the souls of men Are manifested--souls that upward burn In emulation of the beautiful: For the invisible, pure things of Him From the creation of the world are seen And understood by what is made. One G.o.d, One Law, one Hope, one Faith, and one Desire, Are in the impulse of creative hands, And on the lips that sing--as sings the lad To Paul the prisoner, great Sappho's song!

DIVES IN TORMENT

Out of the gulf of a grief that is flame, Spent with the storm of an aeon of tears, Call I at last the Ineffable Name-- Thou Who art throned o'er the flood of the years

Dim are the depths of the City of Dis Where Thou hast plunged me; an infinite pain Harries me on to its lowest abyss, Beats on my head in a torment of rain.

Shapes that are dreadful with uttermost hate Follow me down, and a Voice follows after: Stay! thou dost flee from the furies of Fate!

h.e.l.l trembles with their demoniac laughter.

Why didst Thou form me so helpless and frail Out of the clod and allied to the star?

Lured by the vision and fas.h.i.+oned to fail, Is it my fault I have fallen so far?

Why in my breast didst Thou kindle desire, Love for the lips of a woman divine?

Why did I swoon at the sound of the lyre, Dance and grow wild in the wonder of wine?

G.o.d, how I hate Thee enthroned in the sky; Cruel Omnipotence torturing me!

Clenched are these manacled hands that defy Hosts of the seraphim singing to Thee!

Paused One a moment and played on a harp, Joyous and free in the quest of his star: Pa.s.sed and was gone, in despair of the sharp Pain that smote me like a swift scimetar--

Pain that was memory stirred by his song-- Breath of the lily and breath of the rose, Myrrh on the fingers of maidens that throng Home from the pools when the day is at close:

Hark! how they sing as they carry the jars High on the shoulder: "Home, home from the well!

Gold on the dates is the kiss of the stars, Soft as the kiss of betrothal that fell

Sweet on the lips when my lover claimed me Caught in the vineyard, delayed by the moon Orbed in the west, which I tarried to see:-- Night hath a charm that is not in the noon."

Flight of the Seraph, thou bringest me this-- Love and the laughter of maidens who tell Life is revealed in the breath of a kiss; Softly they sing it: "Home, home from the well!"

Flight of the Seraph, delay, oh, delay!

Spread wide those pinions of purple and gold; Strike on the strings, O my Harpist, and play!

Sing me that song that they anthemed of old,

When from the dust all my members were made, When o'er the cradle a mother looked down, Saw me, her first-born, and clasped me and prayed G.o.d to bequeath me a sceptre and crown!

Sing till Jehovah is shamed by that prayer-- False to the covenant sealed by her pain, He Who hath d.a.m.ned what she suckled with care-- Sing back the years, and her love is again!

Gone is the Seraph! O G.o.d! and O G.o.d!

Thou only art left, Thou only, and I-- Wouldst have my pity? I who am a clod Give that much, Torturer, throned in the sky.

Man is unconquered, Jehovah hath failed; Love and not Hate is the end of the law!