A NEW ZEALAND POET.

Evening Star, Issue 3104, 30 January 1873, Page 3

A NEW ZEALAND POET.

(F, •nm (kc Argus.)

All readers of Browning will remember the lines where he asks— What’s become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip ?

and have conjectured avlio Waring was, and whither he had gone Well, Waring, or Alfred Domett, which is his true name, has just turned up, that is to say, turned up in a litarary sense, having been a tolerably conspicuous figure in the stage of political life in New Zealand. M r Domett has been hitherto known as one of that small circle of politicians out of which New Zealand peiio iica ly renews her Government. He wnl be henceforth belter known by the very remarkable poem which is the subject of this notice, of which it is scarcely enough to say that no original work of equal power has ever cyme out of New Zealand, hereafter, doubtless, to be distinguished in song, Hanoi/ and Amohia is literally what it is called, a daydream owing little beyond its framework to the beautiful land where it has originated. The story, at least so far as New Zealand is concerned, might have been produced anywhere. The love of Amohia, the native maiden, is but a thin thread of passion woven into a web of deep and fanciful philosophy, drawn out of the poet’s inner being. What is really local in the poem is the tine painting of New Zealand scenery, which, as in the following passage, receives a new charm by association with classic ideals and old world culture : Meanwhile unseen cicadas fill The air with obstinate rapture shrill— A wide-fermenting restless hiss Proclaiming their persistent bliss; As if the very sunshine found A joyous voice—and all around, While woods; and rocks, and valleys rung, In brilliant exultation song, And Ranolph loved- could not but prize That tiny classic Cymbalist, So graced with old Greek memories ; The rapture-brimmed, rich-burnished one His bright green comelet streaked with jet, His brow with ruby brilliants set— That, undisturbed, would ne’er desist From clicking, clattering in the sun His strident plates—at every trill Jerking with stiffly quivering thrill His glassy-roofing wings ; as gay As when two thousand years ago— Where—through thin morning vapor grey, With snowy marble gleams between Blue-shadowy clefts of fragrant gloom, Melodious ever and alive With immemorial bees that hive In honeyed thickets, lilac green With sage and thyme iu deathless bloom— Bare old Hymettus looked serene O’er silvery glimpses far l>elo\y Of pure Ilyssus iu swift flow Through plains—one revel of renown ; The hyacinth-curled bronzed Attic boy,— As fond of sunshine, full of joy, In some hot mead where violets hid Blue round the well’s white time-worn trunk Of hollow marble slightly sunk In grass about tire spring that slid Slow-steeping crystal all the year— Would pause beneath the olive shade In loitering chat with one so dear, That slim slip of a Greek-limbed maid, Who looks so sweetly grave upon Sad news about their neighbor’s son Killed—since they met, at . . . Marathon ! —Pause, in the act of sucking down The fig she brings him—bursting ripe, Plump, melting-skinned, and purple-brown, To mark their little gay compeer, As hand in hand they draw too upav. Abruptly stilting his sweet shrilling, And edging round liis olive branch, Backing and sidling out of sight Of eager eyes, that gleam gray-bright. As cmc fond wish the Boy exp esses, That chirper were brrt turned to gold To stick in Myrrhin’s golden tresses ! While noc his wildest dream had told The lad how nrany an age to comp, In what far regions all unknown, His race’s merry earth-born type Would still be singing blithe and staunch, After its own grand Muse was dumb, Its noisy greeds and glories gone !”. It is in isolated sketches like these rather than in Continuous power, either of meditation or of pAssioti, that Mr Doniett best shines. As a story, Hanoi/ and Amohia drags terribly, and amidst its numerous interruptions, parentheses, and “anabranches,” sometimes loses itself altogether, like an Australian river. The hero is too fond of talking Pantheism with bis dusky mistress, and, we fear, must have bored that ingenuous soul a good deal with his disquisitions on the Infinite, Probably he would have been hj ppier, and the'story not duller, had he loved a little more and talked a little less of the antagonism between theism and positivism, In fact, the objection might bo ttpde by one of Amohia’s relatives as was onco urged at a misMonary tca-raceting in those regions, that there -was too much “ Hallelujah not, however, in any orthodox sense for Mr Domett is not orthodox. He is of the broadest of Broad Church, and hits equally hard at the two extremes of low and high, as instance this passage in not unhappy ridicule of Ritualism

Or who with strangely grovelling Quixotry Would think to quell the Evil all about With candlesticks and censers ?—satisfy The crave for Infinite Good that cannot die, With trim and tinselled haberdashery ? Who, in a fight so fierce in such an age, With lackered shields and silvered wooden

swords Of ceremonious mummeries would engage . With pagan posture-tricks such warfare wage And pantomime, in place on Thespian boards Stage-twirlings iu the death-tug! Who could

dote In imbecile expectance to assuage Sharp pangs of soul with prayers run up by rote In self-complacent trills with pompous throat ? Would any heart remorse had desperate driven, Or milder sense of ‘ Sin ’ abased, on Heaven In accents guided by the gamut call, And do-re-mi-sol-fa the God of All?” Mr I omett, however, is most happy in description, and some of his sketches of the peculiar landscape of New Zealand are most admirable. Indeed, wc don’t know that we do not like him better in the object 1 ve than the subjective part, and only wish he had given more play to his realistic brush, and less to his ideal fancies. There is more poetry in this passage, descriptive of the commonplace operation of reefing topsails, than in all his speculations on the mystery of thq universe. See, clambering nimbly up the shrouds, Go, thick as bees, the sailor crowds ; The smartest for the post of honor vie, That weather yard-arm pointing to the sky, They gather at the topmast head, And, dark against the dai kling cloud, Sidling along the foot-ropes spread : Dim figures o’er the yard-imn bowed.

How, with the furious sail- a glorious sight— Up in the darkness of the sky they fight! While, by the fierce encounter troubled, The heavy pitching of the ship is doubled. The big sail’s swelling, surging volumes, full Of wind, the strong reef-tackle half restrains ; And, like some lasso-tangled bull Checked in its mid career of savage might O'er far La Plata’s plains, It raves, and tugs, and plunges to get free, And flaps and bellows in its agony ; Hut slowly yielding to its scarce-seen foes, Faint and more faint its frenzied struggling grows ; Till, by its frantic rage at length Exhausted, like that desert ranger’s strength, Silent and still, it seemed to shrink and close, Then, tight comprest, the reef points firmly tied. Down to the deck again the sailors glide, And easier now, with calm, concentered force, The ship bounds forward on her lightened course.

Of hnv poor Amohia comes to grief, her lover preferring the white ma den of his own country, we shall leave Mr Dometts reader to discover.