INTERLUDE OF KRISHNA.

For many following days in Melita

There was no season of hospitality

To man from Nature under open sky,

Genial for ease and comfort out of doors.

But the fair spacious halls of Publius

Stood smiling ever ready to entertain

Resort of Paul or any dear to Paul

Whether for social worship in prayer and psalm,

With hearing of Paul discourse of things divine,

Or for communion sweet of friend and friend.

Here presently were gathered yet again

The company that had with one accord

Already twice assembled to give ear

To Mary Magdalené while she told

Her story still unfinished of the Lord.

Publius, as Roman to his Roman peer —

And Roman peer so versed in all the arts

And all the accomplishments urbane that make

Amenity in companionship — had said

To Sergius Paulus ( likewise, for his sake,

To Krishna ), “Pray thee, honor thou my house,

And be content, abide with me a guest.”

Now Sergius had to Publius rehearsed

The things that Mary those two afternoons

Recounted, and the Roman lord would fain

Hear from her lips the rest. So he was there —

Guest in a sort, while host, at his own hearth —

And Sergius Paulus said:

“O Publius, thou —

Most welcome, as thou makest us welcome here —

Shalt, so it please thee, us all it will please,

Be the feast-master in the present feast

Of story and of audience. Krishna here” —

And courteous toward the Indian Sergius bowed —

“Has also a story to tell us of his lord.

Whether with alternation and relief

Between our two historians, or in course,

Till one have finished, be the order best,

Judge thou for all, and all will grateful be.”

“Let Mary Magdalené then go on,”

Said Publius, “if she will, from where she ceased

At the last audience;” and he turned to her

With, “Sergius has most kindly made me know

So far thy story, madam, with the rest

Of this good company. But, with thy peace,

And with the peace of Krishna and of all,

I will upon occasion interrupt —

For haply the occasion may arise —

To ask what contrast or what parallel

To this or that of Jesus, Buddha yields.”

So Mary, with some heightened flush like shame

To speak in this new place and presence, yet

Sedately like herself and with a charm

Already round her ambient from the pure,

The perfect, the accomplished womanhood

That hers was, purged of self, charm by all felt

At once ere her beginning, thus began:

“I think that I was saying, as my words

I stayed at our last gathering on the shore,

How little like a tragedy so nigh

It looked to us, when we beheld the throngs

Strewing Christ's way before him with their robes

Flung down, and with green branches of the palm,

And shouting their hosannas to His name.

But Jesus was not blinded as were we!

He, on the brink of the descent arrived

Steep from the Mount of Olives leading down,

Beheld the holy city with its sheen

Of splendor from the temple roofs and walls,

And, far removed from glorying at the sight

As king might welcomed to his capital,

Wept over it, with much-amazing tears,

And cried:‘ Hadst thou but known, but known, even thou,

Yea, even in this thy day but known the things

That to thy peace belong! But they are hid

Now from thine eyes. For days will come on thee —’

And then such dreadful days he told us of —

Days which our holy apostles think are nigh,

Whence their‘ Maranatha!’ so often heard,

Reminder watchword of the Lord at hand,

They solemnly adjuring by the days

Reserved for our Jerusalem, a wrath

To come upon her to the uttermost

Then when He, with the angels of His power,

And as the lightning shineth suddenly

Ablaze from one end to the other of heaven,

Shall back return in clouds to execute

His judgment on the city that slew Him!”

“But wherefore,” the centurion asked once more,

And Mary with a loyal look toward him

Of honor for his kindly courtesy

That day and ever bountiful to them —

Look too betokening welcome of his return

To share the audience of her tale again

Late interrupted by that message brought

Seeming to be of sinister import —

Mary, with such a meaning so conveyed,

Paused, while the friendly Roman plied his quest:

“But wherefore did Jerusalem desire

To slay one innocent of crime like him?

Some reason of state I dared to guess there was,

But what the reason of state, thou didst not tell,”

Turning to Paul he said, and Paul replied:

“The Jewish rulers of the people said:

‘ This Jesus, if we let him thus alone,

Will draw all men to follow after him;

The Romans then will come and take away

Alike this city which belongs to us,

Yea, and the nation over which we rule.’

The rescued remnant of authority

Wielded by the chief priests and Pharisees

Over our nation under Roman sway,

This still was dear to them and this they feared

To forfeit if the fame of Jesus grew.”

“And grow it did surpassing even their fears,”

Mary resumed, at silent sign from Paul;

“For but a little while before, and nigh

Jerusalem, a height of miracle

Jesus had wrought. One four days dead, nay, one

Already four days in his sepulcher,

Our Lord, with only‘ Lazarus, come forth!’ —

Commanded in loud voice before the tomb —

Summoned to life again. The dead came forth

Bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his head

Bound with a napkin round about — no pause,

Not of an instant, in obeying that word,

Prevention none felt from impediment.

Abrupt descent then from such miracle

To the plain level of sobering commonplace.

For he whom Jesus from the dead could call

To leave his tomb, to stand upright, to walk,

Unconscious of obstruction, swathed about

With grave-clothes though he was, must be released

By others from his bonds; the Master said

To those near by,‘ Loose him and let him go.’”

While Mary told these things, a sense diffused

Of something felt by all the Christians there,

Felt, but acknowledged not in word or sign,

Signalled itself despite to all the rest;

And through a kind of dumb intelligence

It came that Publius, Julius, and that deep

Discerning Indian, Krishna, with one mind

To all, unspoken, fixed inquiring gaze

On Rachel and on Stephen, who their hands

Meantime had silently, unconsciously,

With simultaneous mutual movement clasped,

As if in token of some memory

Which they that moment felt between them rise,

Some sacred memory, some undying love.

Then Mary, with the happy instinct hers

Of what was fitting to be said, and when,

And what more fitting to be left unsaid,

And how to say all, or how silent be,

Assuming, with a look of deference

First toward the twain, their present leave to speak —

Granted to her as so much trusted in

For wisdom, and for love in wisdom poised —

Said, with a certain courtesy implied

For Publius as the master of the feast,

And for the others needing to be told:

“That Lazarus, raised by Jesus from the dead,

Is to the Christians of this company

A name the dearer that to two of us

He is the dearest memory of their lives.

For after he had risen from the dead

At Jesus’ call he lived his human life

As he before had done, till in due time

A husband and a father he became.

But Rachel lives in honored widowhood,

As, with her, half in orphanhood lives Stephen,

Because he after fell asleep in Christ

To be waked only when Christ comes again.”

A tender pause succeeded, which all filled

With solemn, some with wondering, thought; and then,

Tempered, beyond his will or consciousness,

To a contagious mood of sympathy,

Publius most gently as feast-master spoke:

“The height of miracle well calledst thou

Such summoning of the dead to life again;

For greater wonder were not possible.

To see it, as thou sawest it, was a gift

Indeed from the supernal powers; next is,

To have it in report of one who saw it;

And then, for attestation of thy word,

Where attestation surely need was none

Yet serving for attestation, to behold

Here those who knew the dead man raised to life

As husband and as father — all makes seem

The story like reality itself.

“And now,” to Krishna turning, Publius said:

“O Krishna, pray from thee a parallel.

What comparable wonder wilt thou show

That thou hast seen thy master Buddha work?”

The countenance fell to Krishna hearing this,

But quickly himself recovering he replied

“I am not able out of all I know

Concerning Buddha aught this day to tell

As one that saw and heard; I never saw,

I never heard, lord Buddha act or speak.”

“Then from report that some eye-witness gave

Thee, speak and tell us what thou wilt, and we

Will be therewith content” — so Publius, dashed

A little from his lively hope, but fain

To ease the discomposure of his guest.

But Krishna, in no wise more cheerful, said:

“Nor from eye-witness have I aught received

That my lord Buddha either said or did:

He lived and passed five hundred years ago.”

“But doubtless some memorials,” Publius said,

“Were written by eye-witnesses of him,

While he still lived, or close upon his death,

To keep so dear a memory alive

And certify it to all aftertime.

So, out of such memorials known to thee,

Fresh still, though old five hundred years, because

Then written when the images were fresh,

Imprinted on the writer's mind of things

He either saw or heard himself from Buddha —

Strange virtue has eye-witness testimony

In simultaneous records of the time

To stay, though old, perennially young —

I say, then, out of such memorials stored

And treasured up in mind to thee speak thou,

And it shall be to us as if thou hadst seen.”

Publius, with all sincerity of aim

To hearten Krishna and make most the worth

Of that which he, although eye-witness not,

Nor yet reporter from eye-witness known,

Should proffer to that hospitality

Of audience touching his dear master Buddh,

Had unawares confused him more and more.

For the first time the Indian felt give way

A little, melting underneath his feet,

His standing-ground of settled certitude:

‘ Was it all quicksand? Nothing there of rock?’

But he made answer: “O my courteous host,

All is uncertain, for tradition all,

Concerning times, and order of events.

Indeed, we Indians care not for these things,

But trust full easily, or, not trusting, yet

Rest as if trusting, in much unconcern

Whether that which we learn be wholly true,

Or partly not; and yet I have heard it said

That, close upon the passing of the Buddh,

A council of five hundred faithful met

Who said together in accord complete —

No sentence varying, nay, no syllable —

The mighty mass of all the Exalted One's

Instructions; but no writing then was made,

Nor again afterward an hundred years,

When such rehearsal came a second time.

So, truth to say, where all is doubt — for me,

I fear there was, for half five hundred years

After he died, no record in writing made

Of what our master Buddha wrought and taught.

Save for those synods of rehearsal met,

That precious memory lived precariously,

As himself lived, the master, vagabond

And mendicant from loyal mouth to mouth.

But such tradition was too vital to die;

Compact of only vocal breath, it still

Persisted and would still for aye persist

Though never at all in written record sheathed.

“But the fourth part of a millennium

After lord Buddha died, a synod sat

Of his discreet disciples, who decreed

That then at least a record should be framed

In writing of the master's deeds and words.”

“Most fit,” said Publius, who to complaisance,

His impulse and his habit, now adjoined

A certain willingness not unamiable

To magnify the twofold part he played

As host and as symposiarch, and make cheer

All that he could for Krishna; “aye, most fit;

And doubtless they were men, that synod, famed

For wisdom and for virtue; name them thou,

Or at least some, the chief, that we may here

Honor them for their worth.”

But Krishna said

( For, by some sense of disadvantage stung,

He took reprisals of his gentle sort ):

“What if I could not name them? What if they,

Concerned less to survive themselves in fame,

Mere empty wraiths of sound to mortal ears

In futile issues of dissolving breath,

Repeated echoes of unmeaning names —

What if, I say, concerned less so to be

Vainly themselves remembered for a day

Than to keep living for the use of men

The saving truths their master Buddha taught,

Those saints and sages of the elder time

Let themselves perish quite from human thought?”

But Publius interposed, insisting, fain

To show some ground of reason in his mind,

Beyond mere curiosity for words,

Why he desired to know those ancient names.

“Yet were it some support,” he said, “to faith

In those same saving truths as truly saved

Themselves for men, after so long a term

Of vagabondage ( to take up thy word ),

Of vagabondage and of mendicancy —

The fourth part of a thousand years consumed

In flying forward hither from mouth to mouth —”

So far, uncertain of his way, he groped;

Bethinking then himself of one more chance,

That might be, of the proof he sought, he said:

“And still, O Krishna, if those nameless ones,

Deserving well to be not nameless, nay,

Of far-renownéd name; nor less, but more,

Deserving that they waived their own desert;

If these — nobly not mindful whether they

Remembered or forgotten were of men,

Yet heedful not to let the coming time

Fail of the truth that they themselves had found

So dear, or dwell in any needless doubt

Of its just phrase — committed at the last

The task of fixing it in written form

To some illustrious man who would consent

To forego for himself his choice of being

Obscure, unknown to aftertime, and lend

The great weight of his name to the result,

For satisfaction to inquiring souls —

Why, that were much, indeed perhaps enough,

And I before required beyond my right.”

Demand upon demand sincerely so

Urged by the genial host upon his guest

As if urbane concessions granted him,

Involved the patient Indian more and more.

Pressed beyond even his measure now at length,

He brooked no longer to allow the toils

To multiply about him which he felt

Were fast entangling him to helplessness.

He boldly spoke to disengage himself:

“We of the East, O Publius, are not such

As you are of the West. We do not count

The years as you do, fixing fast our dates.

We live content a kind of timeless life

That moves continuous on from age to age

Unreckoned. Countless generations come

And go, and come and go, like forest leaves

From year to year, and no one takes account

Of those more than of these. Why should we? Those,

As these, are ever to each other like,

Harvest and harvest endlessly the same.

What profit were there in a history,

What history indeed were possible,

Of either leaves or men? Let leaves and men

Together to oblivion go; be sure

There will not fail to follow leaves and men

To fill the places never vacant left.

“But then we Easterns are yet otherwise

Different from you; for we remember more.

Because we do not write our records down,

We all the better keep them safe in mind.

Doubtless we mix them much with fantasy:

We are not nice to draw a certain line

Between what we remember and what dream.

All is as dream to us, for we ourselves

Are dream, and oft imagination wakes

Where memory sleeps; but, so the form be full,

Somehow, somewhence, it matters naught to us

Whether from fact it be, remembered right,

Or half from fancy fitted to the fact.

Our Buddha is the fair ideal man,

Exemplar of the human possible.

We cannot dream him fairer than he is,

Or was — for he perhaps is not — and so

We fling the rein down on our fancy's neck

And let her freely take her own wise way.

“I will not warrant you the truth of it,

That is, the insignificant truth of fact,

Mere fact, but if the deeper truth of fit

And fair will answer you, I can relate

The story of one miracle of Buddh,

The sole one of the Sutta Pitaka,

That chiefest treasure of our sacred texts.

This, though to raising of the dead no match,

Yet, to my mind, is meet and memorable,

For that therewith a lovely word is joined

Of tuneful teaching from the master's lips.”

“Let us have both, the wonder and the word,”

Said Publius, and the Indian thus complied:

“‘ The Blesséd to the sacred Ganges came

And found the stream an overflowing flood.

The others looked for boats and rafts to cross,

Or else wove wicker into basket floats;

But he, as quickly as a strong man forth

Would stretch his arm, or his arm being stretched

Would bring it back, so quickly at his wish,

Had changed the hither for the thither side.

There standing, he the wicker-weavers saw,

And thus broke forth in parable and song:

They who traverse the ocean of desire,

Building themselves a causeway firm and good

Across the quaking quagmires, quicksands, pools,

Of ignorance, of delusion, and of lust,

Whilst the vain world its wicker baskets weaves —

These are the wise, and these the saved indeed.’”

A pang of suffering love and loving ruth,

For Buddha himself, long quit of earthly strife,

But more for Buddha's disciple present there,

Shot through the heart of Paul hearing these things.

He sighed in spirit heavily, but said,

When Publius seemed to seek a word from him:

“If I have taken the Buddha's sense aright,

He means that they the happy are and wise

Who find a means of ceasing from desire

And entering into passionless repose,

A state from death itself scarce different.

Contrariwise taught Jesus:‘ Blesséd they

That hunger and that thirst;’ that fan desire

To all-consuming flame of appetite —

But it must be for righteousness they pant.

Not from desire, but from impure desire,

To cease — that is salvation; and we best

Cease from impure desire when we to flame

The whitest fan desire for all things true,

For all things honorable, and all things just,

For all things pure, and all things lovely, all

Of good report, and worthy human praise.

Passion for these things, being pure passion, burns

The impure passion out: but passion such

Is kindled only at the altar fire

Of the eternal God's white holiness.

“No God find I in all the Buddha's thought —

A ghastly gap of void and nothingness,

O Krishna, to the orphaned human heart

That aches with longing and with loneliness,

A weanling infant left forlorn of God,

And,‘ O, that I might find Him!’ ceaseless cries

In yearnings that will not be pacified,

Fatherless in a dreadful universe!

I would thy Buddha had felt after God,

And haply found Him, or been found of Him!

I wonder if, not knowing it, he did!

Sadly I wonder when of this I think,

That he who comes to God must needs believe

God is, and a rewarder is of such

As diligently seek Him — such alone.

But may one seek God unawares? With hope

I wonder, when I think again of Him,

The Light that lighteth every soul of man

That anywhere is born into the world.

O Christ, Thou Brightness of the Father's glory,

Immanuel, God with us, the Son of Man,

The Son of God, God Himself manifest

On earth to us, Redeemer, Brother, Lord!”

The strain of such ascription bursting forth

Unbidden, and unboundedly intense

In tone, from the great heart of Paul surcharged

With passion of devotion to his Lord

And with vicarious travailing desire

To save men, wrought in all who heard an awe

Of immanent God. But Krishna to the quick

Was touched with tenderness toward Paul to hear

Paul's tenderness toward Buddha, far removed

Although it were from reverence like his own.

To Publius there seemed no fitting thing

For modulation to the mood from Paul,

Save to let Mary now resume the word.

She said: “After the raising from the dead

Of Lazarus, we disciples of the Lord

Ought not to have been astonished or dismayed

At anything that in His wisdom He,

His wisdom and His power, might either do

Or suffer to be done. But we were blind,

And it did seem to us so violent,

So opposite to all that should have been,

When He, that Lord of life and glory, let

The soldiers take him prisoner. At first

Indeed, when He stood forth and said to them,

‘ Whom seek ye?’ and they, ignorant, said to Him,

‘ Jesus of Nazareth,’ and thereupon

He answered,‘ I am he,’ they, at that word

From Him, majestically spoken more

Than they could bear to hear and stand upright,

Went backward and fell prostrate on the ground.

This, as I think, was not so much against

Those who thus suffered as for us who saw —

To reassure our faith that naught then done

Was done without His sovereign sufferance, who

Such things could, then even, and so easily, work.

“But I have told now what I did not see,

For it was midnight when this came to pass —

Deep in the garden of Gethsemane,

A little paradise of olive trees

Where oft the Master loved to be retired;

A few disciples only were with Him there,

His chosen apostles; and not all of these,

For one of them a little while before

Had gone out from among them — well foreknown

By Jesus wherefore, it was to betray

His Lord and Master to His enemies!

Judas, the name of this one was, and he

Had given it for a sign to those that sought

To lay hands on our Master,‘ Whomsoever

I kiss, that same is He; make sure of Him.’

So Judas, as in all sweet loyalty,

Came up to Jesus with his proffered kiss

Of salutation; but the Lord would not

Receive it, till He had first made known to all

His understanding of its treachery:

‘ Judas,’ He said,‘ betrayest thou with a kiss

The Son of Man?’ When Judas had his sign

Given, he fell back among the band he had brought.

Then was it that the Lord asked them, not yet

Enough assured or haply stunned with fear,

‘ Whom seek ye?’ and declared Himself to them.

So Judas was of those who prostrate fell

Recoiled before the glory of the Lord

Flashing in sudden glimpse from out the shame

Like lightning disimprisoned from a cloud —

Foretasted retribution of his crime!

Thus much not as eye-witness I relate,

But having heard it from eye-witnesses

So many and so close upon the time

That half it seems as if myself had seen it.

“I saw when, with the breaking of the dawn,

After a night to Jesus of such strain

And pain in agony and bloody sweat,

And sorrow of heart for human traitorhood,

And disappointment in his hopes from friends,

And dreadful bodings of the doom so nigh,

And being rudely hustled to and fro

Between one jurisdiction and another,

Everywhere treated with all contumely

Both of accusing and reviling word

And of gross act in blasphemous affront

To the image of God in man — were He but man!—

But He being God, conceive the blasphemy

Of spitting in that heavenly human face

Divine, and smiting Him in mockery,

Blindfolded not to see whence came the blow,

Then bidden prophesy,‘ Who struck thee, Christ?’

( The very slaves there smote Him with their hands ) —

I say that after such a night to Him

Who condescended to be human, God

Although He was, and felt all human woe,

I saw when, morning having broken, they

Led Jesus last to Pilate in his hall.

There He stood lamblike, so pathetical

In His meek majesty I could have wept

For heart-break in sheer pity of His state,

But that the fountain was dried up in me

Of blesséd tears, and I consumed myself

In anguish that fed on my soul like fire.”

The anguish whereof Mary spoke that fed

So like an inward fire upon her soul,

Seemed to surge back on her in memory;

And it was after strong recoil subdued

That she resumed to say: “Ye will not ask

That I tell all again, how shame on shame

Was wreaked upon my Lord, until no more

Was possible from men. Pilate himself

( Now Pilate was the Roman governor )

Pilate himself, I think, was moved to pity,

Though, paltering, he with cruel weakness bade

Scourge that sweet human flesh and temple of God!

Perhaps he thought,‘ This will content his foes.’

So having done, he, issuing from his hall,

Brought Jesus forth before the multitude

Wearing upon His brow a crown of thorns

The soldiers had in mockery plaited Him,

And over his bruised form the purple robe.

‘ Behold the man!’ said Pilate to the Jews;

I think he must have had his hope to meet

Relenting on the part of that wild mob

When they saw Jesus in His piteous plight.

Bloodthirsty as they were, perhaps they would,

With the blood streaming from His wounded brows,

They knowing besides how underneath the robe

Mock-kingly that he wore the blood coursed down

The trenches opened by the cutting lash —

With so much blood they might be satisfied.

Nay, so much blood but maddened them for more.

“‘ Behold the man!’ said Pilate, and I looked.

I knew that He was more than man, and never

Did He the human measure more surpass,

Yet man He was, and so divinely man!

The God in Him, apparent like the sun

To me, made Him not less, more rather, man.

I worshipped Him, and yet I pitied Him!

I never pitied other half so much.

“He was so exquisitely human! Our

Little capacity of suffering pain,

Whether of spirit or of flesh, in Him

Seemed to be carried to unmeasured heights.

What form of anguish ours did He not feel?

Yea, sorrow for sin not His;‘ Which one of you,’

He asked once, and no hearer made reply,

‘ Which one of you convinceth Me of sin?’

Sinless He was, nor ever felt remorse,

That worm which dieth not prey on His soul.

Yet somehow He became so one with us

He felt our sin as if it were His own,

His own to bear in undeservéd woe

Suffered on our behalf, worse than remorse.

All this I blindly felt seeing Him there.

He did not mail Him proof with hero pride

To suffer as if He suffered not, and so

Wrest their vain triumph from His enemies.

They saw Him suffer more than any man,

Not quailing indeed, yet hardening not Himself.

‘ Never man spake like this man,’ some one said;

I say, suffered man never so as He.

How my heart bled for Him when Pilate spoke

Those words,‘ Behold the man!’ And Pilate too,

I pitied him. Pity, with worship blent

Into one overmastering passion, poured

Out of my heart toward Jesus; but toward him,

Pilate, that weak, that wicked, went instead

Pity with horror, doubtful which was more.

Forgive me that I mix myself with this.

Indeed I could not tell you all in all

My story, not another's, of the Lord,

Unless, besides the things I saw or heard,

I told you also how they seemed to me,

What thoughts, what feelings started in my breast.”

The purged high passion with which Mary spoke,

Calm though she kept with costly self-command,

Betrayed itself to Paul observing her.

He knew the tension of remembered pain,

Imagined with such vividness of recall

That well-nigh Mary suffered it all afresh,

Had touched already the extremest bound

Of what that spirit, in its shaken shrine

Of frail flesh quivering so, could safely bear.

He spoke and said: “O Publius, there is much

Remaining still for Mary to recite

Of the last things to Jesus here on earth,

Both His obedience faithful unto death,

And His victorious rising from the grave.

So thou, feast-master of the hour, consent,

Let us — thine own urbane feast-mastership

Resumed then — meet, if God will, yet once more

To hear this solemn history to the end.”

Such word from Paul was mastership transferred

To him; and Publius promptly, without sense

Of yielding, yielded and broke up the feast.