Silence between them, silence filled to Paul With intercession of the Spirit, He In groanings that could not be uttered praying; And to Gamaliel silence filled with awe.
A pride not inaccessible to touch From the divine, and not incapable Of moments almost like humility, Was nature to Gamaliel that sometimes Renewed him in his spirit to a child. He lay now like an infant tremulous That feels the motion of the mother's breast, But other motion, of its own, has not. The awful powers of the world to come, Benign but awful, brooded over him; Eternity a Presence watching Time!
Such breathless silence of the elder twain Left audible the breathing of the boy, Young Stephen, who, worn weary with his hours Of over-early anxious walk and watch, Had found the happy haven, ever nigh To youth and health and innocence o'erwrought, And dropped his anchors in the sounds of sleep. Thus then stretched out remiss upon the floor, As if unconscious body without soul, Lay Stephen slumbering there, beside those two So wakeful that each might in contrast seem Soul only, without body, soul disclad. A blast, not loud, of trumpet sudden blown For signal, and a clangor as of stir Responsive from the mailéd feet of men, Broke on the stillness from the court without. Gamaliel, rousing from his reverie, Gazed deep on Paul, who met his master's eye-- Gazed long and deep with slow-perusing look.
"Look on me, Saul, and let me look on thee," At length Gamaliel said, "look on thee still; Steady thine eye, if that thou canst, my son, And my look take, unruffled, like a spring Sunken beneath the winging of the wind; Stay, let me sound within thee to the deeps, And touch the bottom of thy being, there At leisure with mine eye the truth explore. Be pure and simple, if thou mayest; cloud not My seeing with aught other than sincere, Nor cross with baffling thwart perversity."
Gamaliel, leaning on his elbow, fast His aged vision, like an eagle's, fixed On Paul, and through the windows of his soul, Wide open, as into a crystal sky Gazing, beheld his thoughts orbed into stars. Half disappointed and half satisfied, The gazer slowly let the look intense Fade from his eyes, and pass into a deep Withdrawn expression, as of one who sees, Unseeing, things without, and wraps his mind In contemplations of an inward world.