Of many such as these on board that bark One Indian Buddhist votary there was Worthy of note: a gentle-mannered man Deep in himself involved, as who mused much Of hidden things and hard to understand, The pathos of the mystery of the world, The human strife, with the defeat foregone Companioning the strife and ending it-- Yet ending not a strife that could not end, But ever, round and round, one dull defeat, Trod the treadmill of fate, no hope, no goal. A gentle-mannered man, but sad of cheer, Krishna his name, pilgrim of many climes, Not idly curious to behold and learn, But hiding pity in his heart for men Seen everywhere the same, poor blinded moles Toiling and moiling in the sunless mines Of being, where no joy, whence no escape. Escape none, or, if any, then escape Impossible to win except by slow, And unimaginably slow, process Of suicide to endless date prolonged, Æons on æons following numberless, And fatal transmigrations of the soul From state to state, from form to form, of self: Yet progress none that might be felt the while, But one long-drawn monotony instead Of labor waste in movement seeming vain, Cycles of change returning on themselves Forever, bound to orbits that revolve Eternal repetitions of the same Vicissitude (the weaver's shuttle flung Tediously back and forth from hand to hand-- Or swinging pendulum), 'twixt death and birth, Lapses from misery to misery Always, prospect like retrospect stretched out To vista and perspective vanishing Of path to be pursued and still pursued By the undaunted seeker of an end-- He by his own act dying all the time In ceaseless effort utterly to cease, Will willing not to will, desire desiring To be desire no more, pure apathy, No hope, no fear, no motion of the mind, Until, through dull disuse and atrophy, Extinguished be capacity itself To do or suffer anything, and so, Down sinking through the bottomless abyss Of being, at last the fugitive go free, Emancipate but by becoming--naught! Krishna thus deeming of his fellow-men, Their present and their future and their fate, Hid a vast pity in his heart for them, Pity the vaster that he could not help.
This melancholy man compassionate, Who might in musing to himself seem lost, Yet saw and heard with vigilant quick sense Whatever passed about him where he stood, Or where he sat--for most he moveless sat, Moveless and silent, on the swarming deck. One man indeed he spake with, yet with him His speech, grave ever, he spared, and sheathed in tones Soothingly soft and low like blandishment. That one man was a Roman; Roman less To seeming than cosmopolite--his air An air of long-accustomed conversance With whatsoever might be seen and learned Through much Ulyssean wandering to and fro And up and down among his fellow-men, And watching of their works and words and ways. This Roman citizen of the world, mailed proof In habit of a full-experienced mind Against commotion from surprise, was now Visibly moved to wonder seeing Paul. His wonder checked with reverence and with love Indignant to behold the captive state Of one deserving rather wreath than bond, He stepped toward Paul and with such homage paid As liege to lord might pay saluted him. "Grace unto thee, my brother," answered Paul, "From the Lord Jesus Christ, thy Lord and mine!" They twain fell on each other's neck and kissed With tears. Such salutation and embrace-- No more; but this with variant mood was marked By three that saw it. The centurion Blent in his look pleasure with his surprise; But Felix and Drusilla frowned askance (They also knowing the Roman, as at court Courtiers know one another--without love); Those frowned askance, and mixed their mutual eyes In sinister exchange of look malign Portending sequel if the chance should serve; And in Neronian Rome the happy chance Of mischief, but be patient, scarce could fail!