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Ranolf and Amohia

A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised
Domett, Alfred (1811-1887)

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RANOLF AND AMOHIA:
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VOLUME I.
  
PRELUDE.
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BOOK THE FIRST. THE SAILOR-STUDENT.
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Canto the First. The Sea-boy.
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Canto the Second. Will-o'-wisp-chasing.
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Canto the Third. From Wisp to Morass.
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Canto the Fourth. Terra Firma.
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Canto the Fifth. Cloud-blowing.
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Canto the Sixth. Land-Life or Sea-Life?
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Canto the Seventh. The Shipwreck.
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BOOK THE SECOND. THE SOUTH-SEA VILLAGERS.
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Canto the First. The Rescue.
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Canto the Second. The ‘Sounding Sea.’
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Canto the Third. The Magician.
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Canto the Fourth. A Woodland Jaunt.
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Canto the Fifth. The Legend of Tawhaki.
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Canto the Sixth. Mythical Cosmogonies.
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Canto the Seventh. The Captive.
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BOOK THE THIRD. ALL IN A SUMMER NIGHT.
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Canto the First. Miroa's Tidings.
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Canto the Second. The Song-cheered Swimming.
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Canto the Third. The Star-lit Swimming.
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Canto the Fourth. Legends of the Spirit-Land.
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Canto the Fifth. Amohia at the Fountain.
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Canto the Sixth. Silence and Moonlight.
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Canto the Seventh. The Meeting.
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VOLUME II.
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BOOK THE FOURTH. A LATTER-DAY EDEN.
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Canto the First. Flight of the Lovers.
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Canto the Second. Miroa's Story.
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Canto the Third. Love and Nature luxuriant.
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Canto the Fourth. Trees and the Tree-God.
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Canto the Fifth. The Fountain-Terraces.
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Canto the Sixth. A Geyser Yoked.
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Canto the Seventh. English Maidens.
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BOOK THE FIFTH. STILL IN EDEN.
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Canto the First. The Haunted Mountain.
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Canto the Second. Sports on the Lake.
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Canto the Third. The Cicada.
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Canto the Fourth. A loving Questioner.
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Canto the Fifth. A cheery Theorist.
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Canto the Sixth. Love beats Logic.
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Canto the Seventh. An airy Nest.
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BOOK THE SIXTH WAR.
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Canto the First. The Beleaguered Fortress.
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Canto the Second. War needs Idealizing.
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Canto the Third. The grand Assault.
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Canto the Fourth. Fight between ‘Sounding Sea’ and ‘Angry Star.’
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Canto the Fifth. Love fed by War.
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Canto the Sixth. An old wrong avenged.
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Canto the Seventh. Death of the ‘Sounding Sea.’
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BOOK THE SEVENTH. SELF-SACRIFICE.
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Canto the First. Weariness.
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Canto the Second. A sad Resolve.
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Canto the Third. Death of the Magician.
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Canto the Fourth. Where is Comfort?
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Canto the Fifth. A Vision.
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Canto the Sixth. The Departure.
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Canto the Seventh. After-Experiences.
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V.

Now with uprooting Metaphysics toyed
The youth—their tangled subtleties enjoyed;
A wary old Professor was his guide,
Who welcomed every light from every side;
Yet most—such sad mistrust experience taught
Of plausibly profoundest human thought—
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On common sense and mother-wit relied;
One, who—so high seemed Nature—Man so low—
Felt dwarfed to humbleness he scorned to show;
Yet, that their dwarfishness men would not feel,
Moved to fresh scorn he could not quite conceal.
He would have let the learner-lad confine
His tasks to careworn, truth-adoring Locke;
The lad would learn what ‘paying out more line’
Where Locke had cast it, led to,—solid rock,
Mud, quicksand, or the fathomless profound.
The more line ran, more depth there seemed to sound.
It took him, as you know, to that rare creed,
Etherial, beautiful—the fertile seed
Matured by Locke, our goodly Bishop sowed
Afresh, and reared into rich thought that glowed
Heavy with ears of amaranthine gold
That yet may yield their glorious hundred-fold.
Spirit was crowned when Soldier-sage Descartes
Plato's ‘Innate Ideas’ anew sustained;
But Hobbes—Gassendi—proved Ideas in part
Are through the Senses by Experience gained.
Locke to full growth their treacherous sapling trained.
“All possible ideas are mere sensations,
Or our reflections on them,” Locke insists;
“But half the first are Sense's own creations,
No faithful types of what in truth exists;
Not in the rose the red, nor in light-rays
Its texture splits, but in the eyes that gaze;
Not in the fire, but in our frames, the heat;
Not in the honey, but our tongues, the sweet;
Not in the thunder, but our ears, the roar;
These are impressions on the brain—no more:
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But form, solidity, extension, power
To move or rest, are Matter's genuine dower,
Her real outside existence.” “Nay—pursue
Your doubt,” cries Berkeley; “probe them through and through,
And you will find these qualities you flatter
Yourself you prove essential in this Matter,
No more substantial than its red and blue.”
And then the mighty mitred Analyst,
Silk-aproned subtle-tongued Psychologist,
Thinker by few believed, by all beloved,
With frankest power “unanswerably proved,
What no man in his senses can admit,”
(A phrase of little truth and not much wit)
Proved that all things we hear, see, feel around,
Have no such base as Matter—nay, no base
Or being at all but Spirit—their sole ground.
Forces are they, from Infinite Mind proceeding,
Spiritually active, wheresoe'er it be,
On finite mind to print, in order due,
Sensations, not deceptive nor misleading;
But spiritual coin as spiritual Coiner, true,
And real with Spirit's sole reality.
So Berkeley said and proved his flawless case.
But Hume came sliding in with smiling face,
Veiling the grimmest strength in easy grace;
The pleasant playful Giant—gentle Chief
Of sceptics, dealing blows without a sign
Of effort—slashing with a sword so fine—
Killing with lightning-touches bright and brief;
So wise, so good; whose adversaries found
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His silken glove a Cestus iron-bound,
When staggering all the gladiator press
He proved—or seemed to prove—to their distress
And ours, that Thought itself and Consciousness
Had no such base as Mind—which only meant
Trains of impressions and ideas that went
And came in nothing—neither more nor less;
For no recipient spirit could be perceived,
And Matter was already gone and shent;
And he had settled to his own content
(To such a dogma, ye who can, consent!)
No Cause did ever yet produce Effect
However Custom may the two connect.
Therefore for pictures we within us find,
No Power without—above—of any kind
Need be, or could be, as their cause assigned.
So must we Matter, Mind, God, Soul, alike—
As metaphysical abstractions scout—
Out of the ranks of real existence strike:
And yet as Mind and Matter both, without
Or spite of Reason, must be still believed—
Nature took care of that—that much achieved—
The only clear conclusion was dim Doubt.
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