The exceeding instance of this spectacle It was, filling the place as if with beams, Not of the day, but stronger than the day, That had perforce drawn Shimei's eyes to see-- A moment, and no more. As seared with light Fiercer than they could bear, again they fell. Then all the man with saving terror shook To hear Paul speak--in tones wherein no ire, As for himself, entered, to ease the weight With which the might of truth omnipotent Pressed on its victim like the hand of God: "Full of all subtlety and mischief! Thou Child of the devil, as doer of his deeds! Accurséd, if thou hadst but plotted death Against me, death however horrible, That I had found a light thing to forgive. But to swear me suborner like thyself Of perjury"--But the denouncer marked How, under his denouncement, Shimei quailed: He in mid launch the fulmination stayed. His adversary victim's broken plight Disarmed him, and a sad vicarious sense Of what awaited such as Shimei Hereafter, penetrated to his heart. As shamed from his indignant passion, Paul Instantly melted to a mood of tears. This Shimei less could bear than he had borne Those terrors of the Lord aflame in Paul. The old man shaken with so many sharp Vicissitudes of feeling, sharp and swift:-- Hope from despair, despair again from hope; Then fresh hope from the ashes of despair; That costly hardening of the heart with hate, And steeling, to resistance, of the will; Next, a soul-cleaving anguish of remorse, New to him, mingled with forebodings new, Menaces beckoning from the world to come; These, with the unimagined tenderness That now reached out and touched him in Paul's tears-- The old man, plied and exercised thus, broke Abruptly from the habit of a life, Utterly broke, and suddenly was no more, At least for one sweet moment of release, The hard, the false, the bitter, the malign Shimei of old--changed to a little child! In both his quivering hands his face he hid, And, all his strength consumed to scarcely stand, Wept, with convulsion poured from head to foot, But made no other sign, to this from Paul: "As I forgive thee, lo, forgive thou me, Shimei, my brother! And Christ us both forgive!" The Roman wondering saw these things and heard, Nor moved in speech or gesture, touched with awe. But when now all was acted so, and seemed There nothing was to follow more, he turned, And, not ungently, though with firm command, Said to the soldier: "Lead him hence away To keeping; make his manacles secure. Thou wilt not, I suppose, a second time, Try ear or tongue in parley--never wise. Thou hast lost somewhat in this adventure; see Thou win it back with double heed henceforth." So Shimei went remanded to his doom, With Paul and Stephen pitying witnesses.