PAUL TO TIMOTHY

The long day ends at last, O Timothy,

And I, Paul, prisoner of Jesus Christ,

Wait for the dark.

Upon my window-ledge

A sparrow twitters, pecks at the iron bars

As though to set me free this night of Rome.

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 ships, 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 God 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 God?

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 God,

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 ships, I felt

Shame of my passion 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 God;” for nothing beautiful

Lives but by breathing of the Holy Ghost.

Force is of Satan; Art the child of God;

And they, who like this foredoomed Babylon

Build citadels cemented by men's blood,

Are numbered with the damned!

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 God in the thunders of the seas;

They find Him where pomegranate and the pine

Are passionate 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 God,

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!