"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 Half disappointed and half satisfied, The gazer slowly let the look intense Fade from his eyes, and pass into a deep Withdrawn expression, as of one who sees, Unseeing, things without, and wraps his mind In contemplations of an inward world. "No conscious falseness," murmured he, aloud, Yet inly, as communing with himself; "No conscious falseness there, the same clear truth That ever was the character of Saul; No falseness, and no subtle secret flaw, Unconscious, in the soundness of the mind; The same sane sense that marked him from of old. He has been deceived; how could he be deceived? That light which fell around him at mid-noon, Who counterfeited that? It might have been Force from the sun that smote him in the brain, As he was smitten whom Elisha healed, That son of promise to the Shunammite-- Nay, that had made a darkness, and not light, To him, and dulled his senses not to hear, And dulled his fancy not to feign, such voice As that which spake so dreadfully to him. Astounding voice, that uttered human speech And yet, like thunder, occupied the world! Did Saul discern the tongue in which it spake? Perhaps some mere illusion of the mind, Whimsical contradiction to the thought That had so long been uppermost therein, Imposed itself upon him for the truth; Perhaps some automatic stroke reverse Of overwrought imagination made A momentary, irresponsible Conceit of fancy seem a fact of sense; Perhaps, not hearing, he but deemed he heard. If he distinguished clearly what the tongue Was of the voice that spake, then--I will ask And see. Those words, Saul, which thou seemedst to hear, What were they, Greek or Hebrew? Didst thou heed So as to mark the manner of the speech, Or peradventure but the meaning take?"