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
Soul's 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 disc--
Spoil rondure: what in it ran brave risk,
Changed apathy's calm to strife, bright, brisk,
Pushed simple to compound, sprang and spread
Till, fresh-formed, facetted, floretted,
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.
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