Rephan

Suggested by a very early recollection of a prose story by the noble woman and imaginative writer, Jane Taylor, of Norwich, (more correctly, of Ongar].     - R. B.     How I lived, ere my human life began     In this world of yours, like you, made man,     When my home was the Star of my God Rephan?     Come then around me, close about,     World-weary earth-born ones! Darkest doubt     Or deepest despondency keeps you out?     Nowise! Before a word I speak,     Let my circle embrace your worn, your weak,     Brow-furrowed old age, youths hollow cheek.     Diseased in the body, sick in soul,     Pinched poverty, satiate wealth, your whole     Array of despairs! Have I read the roll?     All here? Attend, perpend! O Star     Of my God Rephan, what wonders are     In thy brilliance fugitive, faint and far!     Far from me, native to thy realm,     Who shared its perfections which oerwhelm     Mind to conceive. Let drift the helm,     Let drive the sail, dare unconfined     Embark for the vastitude, O Mind,     Of an absolute bliss! Leave earth behind!     Here, by extremes, at a mean you guess:     There, alls at most, not more, not less:     Nowhere deficiency nor excess.     No want, whatever should be, is now:     No growth, thats change, and change comes, how     To royalty born with crown on brow?     Nothing begins, so needs to end:     Where fell it short at first? Extend     Duly the same, no change can mend!     I use your language: mine, no word     Of its wealth would help who spoke, who heard,     To a gleam of intelligence. None preferred,     None felt distaste when better and worse     Were uncontrastable: bless or curse     What, in that uniform universe?     Can your worlds phrase, your sense of things     Forth-figure the Star of my God? No springs,     No winters throughout its space. Time brings     No hope, no fear: as to-day, shall be     To-morrow: advance or retreat need we     At our stand-still through eternity?     All happy: needs must we so have been,     Since who could be otherwise? All serene:     What dark was to banish, what light to screen?     Earths rose is a bud thats checked or grows     As beams may encourage or blasts oppose:     Our lives leapt forth, each a full-orbed rose.     Each rose sole rose in a sphere that spread     Above and below and around, rose-red:     No fellowship, each for itself instead.     One better than I, would prove I lacked     Somewhat: one worse were a jarring fact     Disturbing my faultlessly exact.     How did it come to pass there lurked     Somehow a seed of change that worked     Obscure in my heart till perfection irked?     Till out of its peace at length grew strife,     Hopes, fears, loves, hates, obscurely rife,     My life grown a-tremble to turn your life?     Was it Thou, above all lights that are,     Prime Potency, did Thy hand unbar     The prison-gate of Rephan my Star?     In me did such potency wake a pulse     Could trouble tranquillity that lulls     Not lashes inertion till throes convulse     Souls quietude into discontent?     As when the completed rose bursts, rent     By ardors till forth from its orb are sent     New petals that mar, unmake the disk,     Spoil rondure: what in it ran brave risk,     Changed apathys calm to strife, bright, brisk,     Pushed simple to compound, sprang and spread     Till, fresh-formed, faceted, floreted,     The flower that slept woke a star instead?     No Mimic of Star Rephan! How long     I stagnated there where weak and strong,     The wise and the foolish, right and wrong,     Are merged alike in a neutral Best,     Can I tell? No more than at whose behest     The passion arose in my passive breast,     And I yearned for no sameness but difference     In thing and thing, that should shock my sense     With a want of worth in them all, and thence     Startle me up, by an Infinite     Discovered above and below me, height     And depth alike to attract my flight,     Repel my descent: by hate taught love.     Oh, gain were indeed to see above     Supremacy ever, to move, remove,     Not reach, aspire yet never attain     To the object aimed at! Scarce in vain,     As each stage I left nor touched again.     To suffer, did pangs bring the loved one bliss,     Wring knowledge from ignorance, just for this,     To add one drop to a love-abyss!     Enough: for you doubt, you hope, O men,     You fear, you agonize, die: what then?     Is an end to your lifes work out of ken?     Have you no assurance that, earth at end,     Wrong will prove right? Who made shall mend     In the higher sphere to which yearnings tend?     Why should I speak? You divine the test.     When the trouble grew in my pregnant breast     A voice said, So wouldst thou strive, not rest?     Burn and not smoulder, win by worth,     Not rest content with a wealth thats dearth?     Thou art past Rephan, thy place be Earth!