The Conversion of Saul – in poetry

Not Caravaggio. Source.

Two for you today, from different eras, written with different styles and sensibilities. Perhaps.

John Keble (d. 1866)

The mid-day sun, with fiercest glare,
Broods o’er the hazy twinkling air:
 Along the level sand
The palm-tree’s shade unwavering lies,
Just as thy towers, Damascus, rise
 To greet you wearied band.
 
The leader of that martial crew
Seems bent some mighty deed to do,
 So steadily he speeds,
With lips firm closed and fixed eye,
Like warrior when the fight is night,
 Nor talk nor landscape heeds.
 
What sudden blaze is round him poured,
As though all Heaven’s refulgent hoard
 In one rich glory shone?
One moment—and to earth he falls:
What voice his inmost heart appalls? -
 Voice heard by him alone.
 
For to the rest both words and form
Seem lost in lightning and in storm,
 While Saul, in wakeful trance,
Sees deep within that dazzling field
His persecuted Lord revealed,
 With keen yet pitying glance:
 
And hears time meek upbraiding call
As gently on his spirit fall,
 As if th’ Almighty Son
Were prisoner yet in this dark earth,
Nor had proclaimed His royal birth,
 Nor His great power begun.
 
“Ah! wherefore persecut’st thou Me?”
He heard and saw, and sought to free
 His strained eyes from the sight:
But Heaven’s high magic bound it there,
Still gazing, though untaught to bear
 Th’ insufferable light.
 
“Who art Thou, Lord?” he falters forth:-
So shall Sin ask of heaven and earth
 At the last awful day.
“When did we see Thee suffering nigh,
And passed Thee with unheeding eye?
 Great God of judgment, say!”
 
Ah! little dream our listless eyes
What glorious presence they despise,
 While, in our noon of life,
To power or fame we rudely press. -
Christ is at hand, to scorn or bless,
 Christ suffers in our strife.
 
And though heaven’s gate long since have closed,
And our dear Lord in bliss reposed,
 High above mortal ken,
To every ear in every land
(Thought meek ears only understand)
 He speaks as he did then.
 
“Ah! wherefore persecute ye Me?
’Tis hard, ye so in love should be
 With your own endless woe.
Know, though at God’s right hand I live,
I feel each wound ye reckless give
 To the least saint below.
 
”I in your care My brethren left,
Not willing ye should be bereft
 Of waiting on your Lord.
The meanest offering ye can make -
A drop of water—for love’s sake,
 In Heaven, be sure, is stored.”
 
O by those gentle tones and dear,
When thou hast stayed our wild career,
 Thou only hope of souls,
Ne’er let us cast one look behind,
But in the thought of Jesus find
 What every thought controls.
 
As to Thy last Apostle’s heart
Thy lightning glance did then impart
 Zeal’s never-dying fire,
So teach us on Thy shrine to lay
Our hearts, and let them day by day
 Intenser blaze and higher.
 
And as each mild and winning note
(Like pulses that round harp-strings float
 When the full strain is o’er)
Left lingering on his inward ear
Music, that taught, as death drew near,
 Love’s lesson more and more:
 
So, as we walk our earthly round,
Still may the echo of that sound
 Be in our memory stored
“Christians! behold your happy state:
Christ is in these, who round you wait;
 Make much of your dear Lord!”

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John Betjeman (d. 1984)

What is conversion? Not at all
For me the experience of St Paul,
No blinding light, a fitful glow
Is all the light of faith I know
Which sometimes goes completely out
And leaves me plunging into doubt
Until I will myself to go
And worship in God’s house below —
My parish church — and even there
I find distractions everywhere.

What is Conversion? Turning round
To gaze upon a love profound.
For some of us see Jesus plain
And never once look back again,
And some of us have seen and known
And turned and gone away alone,
But most of us turn slow to see
The figure hanging on a tree
And stumble on and blindly grope
Upheld by intermittent hope.
God grant before we die we all
May see the light as did St Paul.

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And then, a couple of my contributions, from three different books, all in the Loyola Kids series – go here, to the publisher’s site, for more information.