Ranolf and Amohia A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised |
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| 1. | Canto the First. Miroa's Tidings.
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| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
| VII. |
| VIII. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
| 5. |
| 6. |
| 7. |
| II. |
 | Ranolf and Amohia |  |
211
Canto the First. Miroa's Tidings.
1. Amo watching Ranolf's boat. Her song. 2. Indoors weaving; sings again. 3. The ‘Grasshopper a burden.’ 4. Evening; news of another proposed alliance for her. 5. Her revulsion of feeling. 6. Earthquake. 7. A resolve (8) acted upon.
I.
True Love is like a polype cut in twain,
And doubled life will from division gain.
And doubled life will from division gain.
Fond Amohia could not in her pain
Of stifled passion, though she strove, refrain
From stealing sometimes to a lonely spot
Where all before her lay the Lake serene,
And she could see the glimmer of the cot
Her heart divined was Ranolf's: there with mien
Expectant on the mountain-side unseen
In thick red-dusted fern would couch until
From the dim baseline of the opposite hill
A white speck disengaged itself and grew
Into a sail; or sometimes,—for to while
The time when sport was slack or weather bad,
With help from native hands, our sailor-lad
Had fitted up a light canoe
With keel, mast, sails, and rudder, too,
And sculls in European style,—
Sometimes a dark spot she descried
With flashing twinkle on each side
That neared and neared till clear in view
The light skiff, in a mode so new,
Its single occupant though backward going
At once with two long paddles rowing,
Came skimming the blue calm, and still
With sharp keel seemed to slit the thin
Glazed surface of the shining Lake
That shrank apart in widening wake
As shrinks beneath the sacrificial knife
Some forest victim's opening skin
Discoated of its fur and warm
From the last pants of its wild woodland life.
There as she sat alone and long,
Like one who murmurs low some potent charm,
In fervid words her love would simmer into song:
Of stifled passion, though she strove, refrain
From stealing sometimes to a lonely spot
Where all before her lay the Lake serene,
And she could see the glimmer of the cot
Her heart divined was Ranolf's: there with mien
Expectant on the mountain-side unseen
In thick red-dusted fern would couch until
From the dim baseline of the opposite hill
A white speck disengaged itself and grew
Into a sail; or sometimes,—for to while
The time when sport was slack or weather bad,
With help from native hands, our sailor-lad
Had fitted up a light canoe
212
And sculls in European style,—
Sometimes a dark spot she descried
With flashing twinkle on each side
That neared and neared till clear in view
The light skiff, in a mode so new,
Its single occupant though backward going
At once with two long paddles rowing,
Came skimming the blue calm, and still
With sharp keel seemed to slit the thin
Glazed surface of the shining Lake
That shrank apart in widening wake
As shrinks beneath the sacrificial knife
Some forest victim's opening skin
Discoated of its fur and warm
From the last pants of its wild woodland life.
There as she sat alone and long,
Like one who murmurs low some potent charm,
In fervid words her love would simmer into song:
1
“Now should He come, whose coming for a whileWill make all Nature smile.
O bless my longing sight,
Dear one! whose presence bright
I hail with more delight,
Than birds the sunrise thrilling through each rapture-ringing cover,
Than trees the spring-time when they glow with gladder green all over!
213
Joy's self looks sad till thou appearest!—
See, he comes!—O dull, dull Lake!
How canst thou sleep so blue—nor wake—
Nor rise and wreathe with loving spray my own, my darling lover!
2
“O slim white Sail, whose every curve of graceSo fondly now I trace,
Each silver shape you try
Only to charm his eye
Ah, happy Sail! and fly,
Because you know, howe'er you strain, he still is with you steering—
Nay! but you only feel, slight Sail, the faint wind's fickle veering:—
O envied Wind! that hampered never
Might fondly fold my Love for ever
Wholly in one airy kiss;
Yet coldly can renounce such bliss,
And on your disenchanted way go heartlessly careering!
3
“You vapoury columns that from hotsprings rise(As from my heart such sighs)
So white against the green,
And through the day serene,
Now this, now that way lean,
And easier postures seem to take for silent contemplation,
O why not always turn towards him in speechless admiration!
214
While on the leaden gloss thereunder,
Silvery rings the fishes make
Are glistening, fading on the Lake—
Flash, murky Clouds, O flash elsewhere, your muttered indignation!
4
“O Sail, O Bark, O happy Wind, O Lake,—All happy for his sake,
Why cannot I too rest
Indifferent, unopprest,
No aching at the breast—
Why not behold a beauteous thing with heedless airy pleasure,
Sleep, sport or speed away like you, untortured by the treasure!—
But I must moan and writhe and languish,
And almost envy in this anguish
The poor fishes, for they die,
But close to him—beneath his eye:—
And death with him to life without, O who its bliss could measure!”
II.
So on the hill would musically moan
The love-sick Maid; but in the house alone
Her songs would take a deeper, sadder tone:—
“Tears, tears!—Oh do not trickle down,
Oh sleep within your fount unknown!
Oh rack my heart but rise not, lest
Cold eyes discern you, and divine the rest.
The love-sick Maid; but in the house alone
Her songs would take a deeper, sadder tone:—
215
Oh sleep within your fount unknown!
Oh rack my heart but rise not, lest
Cold eyes discern you, and divine the rest.
“Oh for some cavern unespied
Whereto I may escape and hide!
Lest my deep love, in my despite
Leap up, and break away into the light!—”
Whereto I may escape and hide!
Lest my deep love, in my despite
Leap up, and break away into the light!—”
Such was the burden of an ancient lay
Half to herself she murmured as she sat
Apart from her companions one bright day
Making a broidered border for a mat.
From sloping roof to earthen floor
Two staffs were fixed the Maid before;
Upon a line between them strung
Fringe-like the flax-warp loosely hung;
She worked the woof in thread by thread;
Inserting deftly, plaiting, tying
Into the web as on it sped
More coloured threads beside her lying:
Her task without a model plying,
She wove with interchange ornate
Of spaces crimson black and yellow—
Triangular or tesselate,
Responding each one to its fellow—
The silky fibres intricate:
Like some Pompeian pavement's old
Mosaic, rich with contrast bold
Of vivid colours, tasteful, true,
The fair design her fancy drew
Beneath her nimble fingers grew.
But ever and anon she stopped,
A thread was tangled, missed, or dropped;—
What but some ill-concealed distress
Could mar such manifest address
With quite unwonted awkwardness?
How could she speed her at her task so trim,
With thoughts so wandering and with eyes so dim?
Half to herself she murmured as she sat
Apart from her companions one bright day
Making a broidered border for a mat.
From sloping roof to earthen floor
Two staffs were fixed the Maid before;
Upon a line between them strung
Fringe-like the flax-warp loosely hung;
She worked the woof in thread by thread;
Inserting deftly, plaiting, tying
Into the web as on it sped
More coloured threads beside her lying:
Her task without a model plying,
She wove with interchange ornate
Of spaces crimson black and yellow—
Triangular or tesselate,
Responding each one to its fellow—
The silky fibres intricate:
216
Mosaic, rich with contrast bold
Of vivid colours, tasteful, true,
The fair design her fancy drew
Beneath her nimble fingers grew.
But ever and anon she stopped,
A thread was tangled, missed, or dropped;—
What but some ill-concealed distress
Could mar such manifest address
With quite unwonted awkwardness?
How could she speed her at her task so trim,
With thoughts so wandering and with eyes so dim?
III.
Then in this fever of despondence, findingHer restlessness she could no more restrain,
Struggling her mien and movements to compose,
Though scarcely able to refrain
From rushing—out into the air she goes.
She steps into the noon-glare hot and blinding;
But what a gush of gladsome sound
At once assails her!—like the winding
Of tiny watches numberless, all round
Unceasing streams the loud-vibrating hiss
Of gay cicadas in their summer bliss.
O it tormented her—it pained
Her soul, that emulous shrill monotony
Of exultation so persistent and sustained.—
She turns to where the Lake, a mimic sea,
217
Hastily she hurries onward now,
Now rests as wearily—wearily watching how
Distorted by the heaving crystal, the bright stones
And tremulous streaks between them clear,
Still float up, vanish, reappear
With endless iteration as the little waves
Keep rolling—rolling in. O then she moans
In very impotence to bear
The placid, playful happiness,
The obstinate calm contentment they express
As if in mockery of her despair.
She flings herself upon the grass
With passionate floods of tears:—Alas,
But who can weep away a woe?
Tears for each flood are readier to reflow;
Or if with the worn frame at length
Exhausted, still revive with its reviving strength.
IV.
Now the long splendours of the day were past;
The gorgeous tints of Eve subsiding fast;
The Western hill-tops touched with solemn rays;
Their slopes in chestnut-hued and chocolate haze
Thin-veiled, that melted downwards into gloom
Blue as the ripened plum's white-misted bloom:
While the reflected roseate richness steeping
The East, slunk fading up from lake and shore,
From mountains next, and last the sky, before
The purple gray of shadow upward creeping;
All the flushed sunset sobered into boding awe;—
When Miroa, coursing quick from side to side,
Tossing to any one she saw
A merry word her aim to hide,—
With careful show of carelessness—
Her anxious flutter anxious to repress—
Her object to seem objectless—
Came like a quivering flittermouse,
Came darting through the gathering dusk to Amohia's house.
The gorgeous tints of Eve subsiding fast;
The Western hill-tops touched with solemn rays;
Their slopes in chestnut-hued and chocolate haze
Thin-veiled, that melted downwards into gloom
Blue as the ripened plum's white-misted bloom:
While the reflected roseate richness steeping
The East, slunk fading up from lake and shore,
From mountains next, and last the sky, before
The purple gray of shadow upward creeping;
All the flushed sunset sobered into boding awe;—
218
Tossing to any one she saw
A merry word her aim to hide,—
With careful show of carelessness—
Her anxious flutter anxious to repress—
Her object to seem objectless—
Came like a quivering flittermouse,
Came darting through the gathering dusk to Amohia's house.
Bursting with news she longs yet fears to tell,
The darkling room she first examines well,
Lest any listener be lurking near;
Then whispers in that Maiden's ear,
How all day 'twixt her father and the priest
The close and covert converse ne'er had ceased;
Till they determined there should be despatched
An embassy to Nápuhi's famous Chief
With offer to bestow her—Amo's hand
Upon his son Pomáre: how, in brief,
She for young Kárepa had watched,
Who to the mission was attached,
Waylaid him on the road and wormed
His secret from him—as she well knew how;—
He teased her with his love so often now!
But had not Kangapo with truth affirmed,
No match more advantageous could be planned
For her—none give her Sire such right to stand,
With unconstrained and equal brow
Proudly amid the proudest of the land?—
This was a marriage,—must she not confess
The priests would all conspire to bless;
Aye, raise to frenzy-pitch their rival tune
Of incantations to the Sun, the Moon,
The winds, and all the powers of Earth and Air,
To be propitious to the bridal pair?
The darkling room she first examines well,
Lest any listener be lurking near;
Then whispers in that Maiden's ear,
How all day 'twixt her father and the priest
The close and covert converse ne'er had ceased;
Till they determined there should be despatched
An embassy to Nápuhi's famous Chief
With offer to bestow her—Amo's hand
Upon his son Pomáre: how, in brief,
She for young Kárepa had watched,
Who to the mission was attached,
Waylaid him on the road and wormed
His secret from him—as she well knew how;—
He teased her with his love so often now!
But had not Kangapo with truth affirmed,
No match more advantageous could be planned
For her—none give her Sire such right to stand,
With unconstrained and equal brow
Proudly amid the proudest of the land?—
This was a marriage,—must she not confess
The priests would all conspire to bless;
219
Of incantations to the Sun, the Moon,
The winds, and all the powers of Earth and Air,
To be propitious to the bridal pair?
V.
Shocked—terrified—the Maiden heardThe tale with obvious truth averred;
She flushed and paled; her blood suspended,
All life seemed fading from her brain;
Then the hot current spirit-stirred,
Back from her strong heart rushed again,
And high she rose above her pain.
Her doubts, her hesitation ended,
This—this—she felt had sealed her doom:
O dread! to-morrow well she knew
Once more she might be made taboo:
And what could break that hideous chain!
The threatened fate she could evade
Only by flight—swift—secret—undelayed!
All the sheet-lightning that had played
In pointless passion round her soul so long,
Condensed by this compulsion strong,
Shot into arrowy purpose, clear against its gloom.
VI.
As through the land when some dread Earthquake thrills,Shaking the dark foundations of the hills;
Their grating adamantine depths, beneath
The ponderous, unimaginable strain and stress,
Groan shuddering as in pangs of worldwide death;
220
Rough-edged with trackless forests, to the eye
A double outline take (as when you press
The eyeball); and the beaten roads below
In yellow undulations roll and flow;
And in broad swamps the serried flax-blades lithe,
Convulsed and tortured, rattling, toss and writhe,
As through them sweeps the swift tremendous throe:
Beasts howling run, or trembling, stand and stare,
And birds, as the huge tree-tops swing and rock,
Plunge scared into the more reliable air:—
All Nature wrung with spasm, affrighted reels
Aghast, as if the heavy chariot-wheels
Of the material God Man's infancy
Devised, in very truth were thundering by
In too intolerable majesty:—
Then he who for the first time feels the shock,
Unconscious of its source, unguessing whence
Comes flying o'er him, with oppressive sense
Of irresistible Omnipotence,
That boundless, strange, o'erwhelming influence,
At once remote and in his inmost heart,—
Is troubled most, that, with his staggering start
All the convictions from his birth upgrown,
And customary confidence, o'erthrown,
In Earth's eternal steadfastness, are gone:
Even such a trouble smote in that wild hour
Our Maiden—such revulsion shook her soul,
As o'er her swept that sense of doom—a power
And dire compulsion spurning her control!
All feelings that had been her life-long stay
Seemed from their deepest root-holds wrenched away;
No more could her convulsed, afflicted breast,
221
Her Being all upheaving seemed to be
Cast loose and drifting towards an unknown Sea;
Her heart's young world uptorn—receding fast,
Far rolled the echoes of the fading Past:—
She stood alone—herself her sole support at last.
VII.
'Tis Night;—the Maiden steals along the shore
How lone the aspect at that hour it wore!
How shelterless from all dread things—so deemed
Her superstition—wherewith Darkness teemed!
All the familiar friendliness of Day,
And all its life and stir, subsided—sunk—
Within that circling fence shut up and shrunk,
Where, snake-like coiled, the sleeping Village lay
Miles distant now its very precincts seemed.
She speeds to where her people use
To leave afloat their red canoes;
A new misfortune! all and each
Are high and dry upon the beach;
The lightest well she knew would prove
Too heavy for her strength to move.
Was she distrusted? her design
Betrayed? she cares not to divine:
Her spirit not a moment falters;
Not once her cheek its colour alters:
As he who desperate only tries
To strike one stroke before he dies,
And hardly wincing, never heeds
Some fresh deep wound as fast he bleeds—
So this last stroke the Maid receives;
So with impatient patience shuts,
Though to her heart it keenly cuts,
Her heart against it; if she grieves,
That grief can silently repress
With one sad smile of bitterness,
(The choking at her throat no less)
While to her aim she calmly cleaves.
Shall this defeat her fixed intent?
The Lake her purposed flight prevent?
Her favourite haunt, almost from birth
In many an hour of fearless mirth,
Her life beside it had been spent,
'Twas like her natural element!
With throbbing breast, with lips comprest,
She flings her quick and lighted glance
Determined o'er its dark expanse:
That further shore was distant—dim—
But better death than turning back!
No way but one! yes, she will swim—
Her daring path unaided track
Across that plain so still and black!—
Did not her own great Ancestress
Once swim that Lake in like distress?
Might she not dare and do the same?
Did she not feel as true a flame?—
How lone the aspect at that hour it wore!
How shelterless from all dread things—so deemed
Her superstition—wherewith Darkness teemed!
All the familiar friendliness of Day,
And all its life and stir, subsided—sunk—
Within that circling fence shut up and shrunk,
Where, snake-like coiled, the sleeping Village lay
Miles distant now its very precincts seemed.
She speeds to where her people use
To leave afloat their red canoes;
A new misfortune! all and each
Are high and dry upon the beach;
The lightest well she knew would prove
Too heavy for her strength to move.
Was she distrusted? her design
Betrayed? she cares not to divine:
Her spirit not a moment falters;
Not once her cheek its colour alters:
As he who desperate only tries
To strike one stroke before he dies,
And hardly wincing, never heeds
Some fresh deep wound as fast he bleeds—
222
So with impatient patience shuts,
Though to her heart it keenly cuts,
Her heart against it; if she grieves,
That grief can silently repress
With one sad smile of bitterness,
(The choking at her throat no less)
While to her aim she calmly cleaves.
Shall this defeat her fixed intent?
The Lake her purposed flight prevent?
Her favourite haunt, almost from birth
In many an hour of fearless mirth,
Her life beside it had been spent,
'Twas like her natural element!
With throbbing breast, with lips comprest,
She flings her quick and lighted glance
Determined o'er its dark expanse:
That further shore was distant—dim—
But better death than turning back!
No way but one! yes, she will swim—
Her daring path unaided track
Across that plain so still and black!—
Did not her own great Ancestress
Once swim that Lake in like distress?
Might she not dare and do the same?
Did she not feel as true a flame?—
She keeps before her mind, despite
The spirit-haunted gloom of night
That hid its waters shadowy-bright,
Its daylight image, tempting, dear,
Light blue and beautiful and clear!—
She tries in vain to recognize
The rolling mountain-slope where lies
The hut that holds her love—her life;
But as with daylight details rife
She bids the cherished picture rise,
She feels the spell of kindly eyes;
One kindly voice inviting cries;
One living presence sweeps from view
The distance and the darkness too;
Before its thrilling influence driven,
All scruples to the winds are given!
What to her is far or near?
What has she to do with fear!—
Her light dress lightly flung aside—
See! she has dashed into the waters wide!
The spirit-haunted gloom of night
That hid its waters shadowy-bright,
Its daylight image, tempting, dear,
Light blue and beautiful and clear!—
223
The rolling mountain-slope where lies
The hut that holds her love—her life;
But as with daylight details rife
She bids the cherished picture rise,
She feels the spell of kindly eyes;
One kindly voice inviting cries;
One living presence sweeps from view
The distance and the darkness too;
Before its thrilling influence driven,
All scruples to the winds are given!
What to her is far or near?
What has she to do with fear!—
Her light dress lightly flung aside—
See! she has dashed into the waters wide!
VIII.
Delicious to her throbbing heart—
Delicious to her fevered brain
Was that cool loving water! Eagerly
She dipped her head, again—again—
As if it could appease the inward smart,
Could charm away the choking pain.
Delicious to her fevered brain
Was that cool loving water! Eagerly
She dipped her head, again—again—
As if it could appease the inward smart,
Could charm away the choking pain.
Then fully conscious first she seemed to be
How she had launched upon her lonely way;
As from a dream first perfectly awoke
To all the dangers of her bold essay.
So singling out and noting well
A star, that near the mountain's verge
Obscure and vague, hung just above
The spot as even in darkness she could tell
Whence she had seen his boat emerge
So oft, as on her hill-top she would bask
On that forlorn look-out of Love,—
She fixed upon its twinkling spark
Her course to guide, her goal to mark;
Then with a calmer pulse and steadier stroke,
Gave herself up to her adventurous task.
How she had launched upon her lonely way;
As from a dream first perfectly awoke
To all the dangers of her bold essay.
So singling out and noting well
A star, that near the mountain's verge
Obscure and vague, hung just above
The spot as even in darkness she could tell
224
So oft, as on her hill-top she would bask
On that forlorn look-out of Love,—
She fixed upon its twinkling spark
Her course to guide, her goal to mark;
Then with a calmer pulse and steadier stroke,
Gave herself up to her adventurous task.
| Ranolf and Amohia | |