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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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XIV.
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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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XII.

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X.

“Yet after all”—and here the wary old
Campaigner in the war against Despair
Fell back upon a fortress he would hold
When Reason's forces seemed too hardly prest,
Rearing a broader banner in brighter air
And sounding notes that like a bugle's blare
Triumphant echoes woke in Ranolf's breast:
“Whate'er that Unknown Realm—of Spirit whole
Or matter wholly past perception—be,
That hiding-place and homestead of the Soul;
Its nature and mysterious destiny;
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If entrance 'tis impossible to gain
For Science to that royal-rich domain,
And Intellect alone be found too poor
A tool to burst the Imperial Palace-door,
(Though I must think the expanding range allowed
To Man's Experience will supply some day
A basis, starting-point or link whereby
Science Demonstrative will pierce the cloud
And back with glittering spoil come laden gloriously!)
But if this may not be, why fear to say
The Soul, its sphere and nature must be such—
For Intellect thereon to logicise
Is just to try rich colours with the touch,
Or test melodious sounds with keen bright eyes;
As Dante's heard the sculptured Widow's speech—.
On that white frieze-like Purgatorial bank
Whose end each way his eyesight could not reach—
Ask death for her son's murderer as she sank
At Trajan's feet, and ceased not to beseech
Till his roused virtue had vouchsafed her prayer;
Then saw the sound of visible replies
The marble Emperor made her voiceless cries.
That feat we would not ape, but rather dare
Confess that in an atmosphere so rare
The leaden wing of Logic cannot rise;
That by Emotion, not Reflection, best
The Soul is borne aloft in that fine air—
Feeling, not Thought, her fiery chariot there!
The highest Sentiment were then confest
The base whereon the highest Truth must rest;
The highest Truth itself, not such—about
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Whose sureness 'twere impossible to doubt;
But as to sureness, in the next degree,
Such as, not proved, most probable might be:
True till a higher Truth were felt or found
And by the beating hearts of men around
As such accepted—welcomed—honoured—crowned;
Still raised, refined, as Science purged away
What Error in her reach obscured its ray;
Aught from that lower realm that might alloy
Its gold, would Logic fasten on—destroy;
And everything she honestly disproved,
Must be relinquished—howsoe'er beloved:
With one proviso, proved default of proof
Is from disproof a million leagues aloof.
“Let us cling then, my lad, to that glimpse of a Truth about Truth we have caught,
That Emotions may teach it as well as Sensations. Aye! perish the thought
‘What we feel with the fingers is all—what we feel with the heart shall be nought!’
That the heart and the soul reach beyond all the senses is ever confest;
Then for what lies beyond all the senses, their evidence must be the best.
And if many, the best and the deepest to feel and to think, can arrive
By emotions most pure to that grandest conviction—the Soul shall survive,
Such a theorem rightly they prove, do they not? from premises read
Not in reasons but feelings alone—Q.E.D. of the heart, not the head?—
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