"You have my best kind hopes and all good men's. Ask for the house that harbored Stephen's corpse And whence the funeral issued--quarry there You cannot fail to find. The widow too Of Stephen, I watched her, and what I saw Makes me misdoubt her Hebrew orthodoxy. Sound her--an ounce of thorough work done now, Unquestionably thorough, will be worth A hundred weight of paltering by and by. Despise the fear that now and then a man May call you cruel; the worst cruelty, As you and I well know, is ill-timed softness. This thing must be stamped out; it is a plague, It creeps from house to house, no house is safe. Your house, Saul, mine--that sister fair of yours, Yes, treat the thought with scorn, but some fine day, Why not? Saul wakes to find his sister lost." How far unconsciously, Saul could not guess, But Shimei, in that last home thrust of his, Either by pure fortuity, or else With malice the most exquisitely wise, Had hit the quivering quick of Saul's sore pride. Saul winced visibly, and Shimei, satisfied, Left him alone the prey of his own thoughts. Saul's thoughts were visions rather; first, he saw His sister as in that farewell with her Bowed beautiful beneath a brother's scorn, Like a meek flower broken with tempest; then, Stephen he saw, his face with God in him Afire, before the council; next, that face Toward heaven upturned, he, far within the veil Agaze, beholding there the glory of God; Once more, the martyr lifting holy hands On high, with his last breath praying for those That slew him, praying also then for Saul! Rachel the while--she rather felt than seen-- With tears that did not gather, but that made Her deep eyes deeper than the soundless sea, Looking at him. Swift then the vision changed, And he saw Stephen in the temple court Turn suddenly round on Saul his blinding face To threaten him with promise that, one day, He, Saul himself, should grovel in the dust Before the feet of Jesus crucified! Those visions were as when the lightning-flash, By night, fast following lightning-flash, reveals, One instant and no more, the world, but prints Its image on the eye intensely bright.