Simon mistook--it was his last mistake! He had overweened both of the power his own, And of the emperor's openness to fear. Nero sat gazing on the spectacle With heed moveless, and mute, and ominous, Till the device was acted to the end. Then still no sign he gave--save summons sent Bidding two household soldiers straight come in. To these he coldly, curtly, only said: "Crucify me this Jew; do it at once! Be gentle with him; make him last for days, And every day bring me report of him." Simon bethought him as he shuddering went Hustled and hurried to that sudden doom, Of his gold hoarded long for utmost need: He offered it in ransom for his life. The soldiers took it, share and share alike Between them, but it did not buy his life! Simon died miserably upon the cross. 'I have abolished _him_!' the emperor thought-- 'The adamantine front of impudence! Whimsical way of paying a lady court, To crucify her conjurer out of hand! I hope she did not greatly care for him! Happily if she did I can repair The loss to her by putting Paul to death. Strange, they should hate that blameless man so much! But reasons of state are strong--and reasons of love; I must propitiate with a sacrifice. Jove is compelled by fate mightier than he!' The tetrarch Herod, to content the whim And hatred of his wife Herodias, Once at petition of her daughter fair-- Whose dancing measures beat at festival Before him had, forsooth, the monarch pleased!-- Sent to behead John Baptist in his prison: So Nero now in mind delivered Paul To death--an unconsidered pledge and pawn Of complaisance to a base woman paid. As were a star by some avulsive force Malignant sheer from out her pathway torn Where she went singing her celestial way Happy but to fulfill His high decree Who orbed her and who sped her on her course (Thenceforth to be abolished from a heaven Lighted no longer with her lucent beams!); So Paul was in his heavenly circuits stayed And wrenched thence by the hand of violent power. Rome had already round him flung the loop Of her long lasso irresistible, And drawn him home to Cæsar to be judged. No little damped because their head was gone, But more because he so had disappeared, The Jews commissioned from Jerusalem Pressed fierce their suit against their fellow-Jew. Nero's assessors sat without their chief; For Nero was grown indolent and lax, And he deputed his judicial powers. Yet oft deigned he to give his deputies Hint of what judgment he desired from them; And they now knew the doom required for Paul.