What happened? At first there were strange, confused accounts.
This man, said one, who had long for righteousness’ sake
Delivered unto the death both men and women
In his zeal for the Lord, had tumbled from his mount,
Felled by an unheard Word and worded omen.
Another claimed his horse shied at a snake.

Yet a third, that he was convulsed by the onslaught
Of the falling sickness, whose victims we were urged
To spit upon as protection and in disgust.
Rigid in body now as in doctrine, caught
In a seizure known but to few, he lay in the dust,
Of all his fiercest resolves stunningly purged.

We are told by certain learned doctors that those
Thus stricken are granted an inkling of that state
Where There Shall Be No More Time, as it is said;
As though from a pail, spilled water were to repose
Mid-air in pebbles of clarity, all its weight
Turned light, in a glittering, loose, but stopped cascade.

That Damascene culprits now could rest untroubled,
Their delinquencies no longer the concern
Of this fallen, converted Pharisee. He rather
From sighted blindness to blind sight went hobbled
And was led forth to a house where he would turn
His wrath from one recusancy to another.