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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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I.
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II.
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III.
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IV.
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VI.
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VII.
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VIII.
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IX.
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Canto the Second. Will-o'-wisp-chasing.
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VIII.
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Canto the Third. From Wisp to Morass.
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VII.
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VIII.
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IX.
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Canto the Fourth. Terra Firma.
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VIII.
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XII.
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XIII.
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Canto the Fifth. Cloud-blowing.
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XIII.
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XIV.
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Canto the Sixth. Land-Life or Sea-Life?
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VIII.
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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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VIII.
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IX.
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Canto the Second. The ‘Sounding Sea.’
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Canto the Third. The Magician.
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VIII.
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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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VIII.
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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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VIII.
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Canto the Second. The Song-cheered Swimming.
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III.
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IV.
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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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XII.
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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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 VIII. 
VIII.
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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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X.
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Canto the Seventh. After-Experiences.
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XII.

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VIII.

“St. Lawrence! yes, I well remember
Thy Gulf—that morning in September.—
Fast flew our Ship careering lightly
Over the waters breaking brightly;
Alongside close as if their aim
Were but her vaunted speed to shame,
Sleek porpoises like lightning went
Cleaving the sunny element;
Now where the black bows smote their way
How would they revel in the roaring spray!
Like victors in the contest now
Dash swift athwart the flying prow;
Or springing forward three abreast
Shoot slippery o'er each foamy crest—
Shoot upwards in an airy arc
As three abreast they passed the bark:—
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Pied petrels coursed about the sea
And skimmed the billows dexterously;
Sank with each hollow, rose with every hill,
So close, yet never touched them till
They seized their prey with rapid bill:—
Afar, the cloudy spurts of spray
Told that the grampus sported there
With his ferocious mates at play.
Meanwhile the breeze that freshly blew
From every breaking wavetop drew
A plume of smoke that straightway from the sun
The colours of the rainbow won,
So that you saw wherever turning
A thousand small volcanoes burning,
Emitting vapours of each hue
Of orange, purple, red and blue.
The Sky meanwhile was all alive
With snow-bright clouds that seemed to drive
Swiftly, as though the Heavens in glee
Were racing with the racing Sea:
Each flitting sight and rushing sound
Spread life and hope and joy around;
Ship, birds and fishes, Sky and Ocean
All restless with one glad emotion!—
“But what a change! when suddenly we spy
Apart from all that headlong revelry—
Pencilled above the sky-line, like a Spectre drear,
A silent Iceberg solemnly appear,—
Pausing ghost-like our greeting to await.—
The crystal Mountain, as we come anear
And feel the airs that from it creep
So chilling o'er the sunny Deep,
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Discloses—while it slowly shifts,
Now blue, faint-glistening semilucent clifts,
Now melancholy peaks, dead-white and desolate.
“But comes it not, this Guest unbidden
This wanderer from a home far-hidden,
Dim herald of the mysteries of the Pole
With tidings from that cheerless region fraught—
Comes it not o'er us like the sudden Thought,
The haunting phantom of a World apart,
The blank and silent Apparition
That, ever prompt to gain serene admission,
Lurks on the crowded confines of the heart,
The many-pictured purlieus of the Soul;
Nay, sometimes thrusts its unexpected presence
Upon our brightest-tinted hours of pleasaunce?—
“That Polar realm is ransacked—known;
Our outside World of Matter, still
Lies pervious to determined will:
And shall the World of Spirit never
Its secrets yield to true endeavour?—
Five thousand years have doubtless shown
But little of that Spirit-zone:
For Science is a Child as yet
At hornbook rude and primer set:
And Man is just emerging from the past
Eternity of Darkness; from the vast
Æons and ages of a measureless Night,
Rubbing his eyes at the unwonted light:
How should he read all things aright
And say what can or cannot be—or utter
Out of his heart the Universe, whose growth
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And whole existence yet is but the flutter
Of an ephemeral water-moth?
Take fifty thousand years—a span
In the conceivable career of Man;
Think you, with riper knowledge—skill profounder—
No grand explorers, bolder, sounder,
Will break into that Spirit-zone—reveal
Not iron-bound realms of ruthless ice and snow
Or narrow straits where freezing waters flow,
No shooting lights, or shifting gleams;
But prospects trustier than the dance and play
Protean of those dumb magnetic storms—
Auroras lovelier than our sanguine dreams
Of fondest Inspiration—Forms
Of Being more essentially divine
Than all that in Thought's topmost triumphs shine?
And prove how real the region whence our stray
And shadowy intimations find their way;
With what true signs and tokens rife
Those glimmering dreams and fine forebodings steal
Into the circle of our little day,
Into the glad familiar Sea of Life?’
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