Disappointed Poet Who Became Premier

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29270, 30 July 1960, Page 10

Disappointed Poet Who Became Premier

[By CECIL and CELIA MANSON]

a year of each other, two poets were born in Camberwell;, this was then a Surrey town lying in the country south of the Thames; now it is deeply embedded in the sprawling mass of London. One of these poets, Robert Browning, was to become world famous.

The other, Alfred Domett, destined to become Premier of New Zealand, longed to achieve fame as a poet, but never did so.. Nearly all the poetry he wrote was soon forgotten.

The one poetical work for which Domett is still lingeringly remembered, the epic-length poem Ranolf and Amohia, “A South Sea Daydream,” has for its heroine the idealised Maori maiden AmoJiia.

There is a certain irony in this fact, for in the wars between Maori and European with which Domett was to be so concerned, he was to be notoriously unsympathetic and un-understanding in his attitude to the Maori people. As the two young poets grew up from boyhood to manhood in their suburban London village, Domett and Browning showed early the differences in their characters. This was exemplified when the time came to choose their careers. Browning, after giving only brief thought to other careers, such as those of painter or- lawyer, decided unequivocally for poetry. All along, to be a poet had been his secret ambition. Now he had no hesitation in admitting it. Domett’s approach was different. He also secretly wished to be a poet, but either caution or indecision made him hesitate, and he was soon enmeshed in legal studies in the Middle Temple. Both young men were now about 20, and they, enjoyed each other’s company. But for one. Browning, the next 10 years were to be the foundation of fame, while for Domett they were to be practically wasted.

Travelled Widely Domett travelled to America, to the Caribbean, to the Continent, sometimes accompanying his friend Browning; he studied halfheartedly at his law; he sought amusement and enjoyed talking, bursting with ideas and never doing anything about them. He even wrote some poems which were published, and which made him talked about for a while. But it was the life of a dilettante, and gradually Domett himself came to realise it

Look at Browning: even at 20 be had already been full of tremendous ideas for great poems, and he had already finished "Pauline.” And within those wasted 10 years of Domett’s, Browning had written “Paracelsus,” the poem 'which opened to him the inner doors to the great literary men of the time—Carlyle, Landor, Leigh Hunt Wordsworth. Dickens, and the like. He had -completed and produced the .great but now long neglected verse-play •‘Strafford." He had written the unintelligible (his own word) long poem “Sordello,” and the plays “King Victor and King Charles” and “The Return of the Druses.” » Almost Jealous And Domett? Could anyone have shown less for those 10 years? Almost jealous now of his

friends’ progress, he searched his own heart. Did he have it in him to do any of the great things he had thought of? Could he achieve as well as dream? A bold decision was needed, and he took it. He would make such a break in his life that it would remove him physically as well as mentally from all that he was accustomed to.

A cousin had bought some land in the new settlement which was just then being established at Nelson, in New Zealand. Domett decided to follow his example. Browning, when the news of Domett’s unannounced departure reached him, could scarcely believe it-.-New Zealand? What on earth could a half-poet halfbarrister half-everything do there?

Saw Objectively

Yet, even at this moment, through Browning’s mind there flashed a glimpse of material for a poem. Psychologist as he always was, he saw now his friend Domett objectively; saw the conflicts, the strivings for recognition, the frustrations which had been gnawing at Domett’s mind through the wasted years. And after Domett had sailed ‘ away in the month of August, 1842, on bord the ship Sir Charles Forbes, Browning sat and wrote the first lines of the poem in which he paints the most telling portrait of young Domett which we of later generations could have wished for. For Domett he used the name Waring.-Here are some lines from it: What’s become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip. Chose land-travel or sea-faring Boots and' chest pr staff and scrip Rather than pace up and down Any longer London town? He was prouder than the devil ... as up and down he paced this London. With no work done, but great works undone, . Where, scarce twenty knew his name. Meantime, how much I loved him, I find out now I’ve lost him. Oh, could I have him back once more. This Waring, but one half day more. Back with the quiet face of yore So hungry for acknowledgement Like minel I’d fool him to his bent Feed, should not he. to heart’s content rd say, “to only have conceived Planned your great works, apart from progress. Surpasses little works achieved.” I’d lie so. I should be believed. “Leonine’* As for looks. Domett at this time was brown whiskered, fresh complexioned, handsome, with striking brown eyes. “Leonine” was an epithet often applied to him, and a - woman of his acquaintance ' once described his striding up and down the room “like a caged lion.” Alfred Domett stepped ashore at Nelson eager to begin the life

of a pioneer. Something, perhaps the sunshine, perhaps the beauty of the scenery, worked in him the very miracle for which he had hoped, the infusion of new life and energy. With zest he threw himself into making his new home and developing his acres in the lovely Wairoa gorge. At times, like every emigrant who ever left home, he was beset with nostalgia, a longing for London, for a touch of his old life, and above all for a talk with his old friend Browning. But the moods passed, and he joined heartily in any gaieties which the little settlement could organise. He himself was One of the promoters of the longremembered Bachelors’ Ball. Press Writings And he wrote. The New Zealand Company believed in each new settlement having a newspaper of its own, and Nelson was no exception. Domett contributed generously to the pages of the Nelson Examiner, and enjoyed having this outlet for his views. But within less than a year his carefree, pioneer life was to be changed to one of responsibility and leadership. The change took place with great suddenness. In June, 1843, only eight months after Domett had landed, Captain Arthur Wakefield, leader of the Nelson settlement, was persuaded by his quick-tempered magistrate Thompson to take a party of armed settlers to deal with the Maori leader Te Rauparaha, who was disputing the company’s claim to the Wairau plain, where Blenheim now stands. The result qf this rash action—the slaughter of practically the whole party of settlers and their leaders—was to change the history of New Zealand and to poison racial relations for a long time to come. Domett himself was only saved from being one of the party through haying broken a bone in his leg.

One of the. doomed party was the editor or the “Nelson Examiner.” Who would succeed him? Domett was chosen. Heard In London Now from the editorial chair in the little village office of the “Examiner,” a voice began to boom with such thunderous reverberations that it was heard not only in Auckland, the seat of Government, but in far-away London. What, asked Domett,, was the Governor going to do about the cold-blooded murder of Englishmen? Did England send a Governor to protect her sons or to encourage the Maoris to kill them. Governor Fitzroy, in fact, could see rather more clearly from a distance that the expedition had been highly provocative, and that all the blame was far from being on the side of the Maoris. But Domett was too close in time and place to the event to view it objectively. The whole settlement, in fact, was in a state of alarm. Each night settlers took turns to keep watch, with muskets ready loaded. ' Week after week Domett hammered at Auckland, sometimes even using verse to belabour the unfortunate Governor. “Thus we see In your method to civilise savages > By giving them licence to murder and thieve. And then hanging those who resist their wild ravages. A scheme which it needed your brain to conceive.” Not content with continued vitriolic outpourings in his newspaper, Domett also prepared for

the New Zealand Company a 34page petition for the recall of Governor' Fitzroy. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, in London, was delighted with it, and found meahs to have it presented to Gladstone. Domett, in these early years of his New Zealand career, was an out-and-out imperialist die-hard. “His attitude to the Maoris,” said Thomas Arnold (brother of the poet Matthew Arnold), “was more Roman than Christian.” To anyone holding these ideas, the Wairau killings seemed no more than proof that he was right. “Finesse,” wrote Domett, “is absolutely useless in dealing with natives. It is the strong hand that is required. They must be punished —and punished severely—for any infraction of the law, and must never be allowed to feel that they are the stronger party. They must :be ruled with a rod of iron. After all, it is unthinkable that savages should have equal rights with civilised men. Nevertheless, they are not cattle, and if they can be educated up to a firm belief in the white man’s domination, it should be possible to treat them with, some degree of kindness.” Domett Delighted Some months later a ship sailed into Nelson harbour bringing news which delighted Domett and the settlers who shared his views. Fitzroy, the Governor, was being recalled. Misunderstood, suspected, despised, the unfortunate ’ Governor left Wellington,, amid general rejoicing. Yet he had been right, Domett wrong. In . Nelson his departure was celebrated by the firing of guns and a great banquet held in Domett’s honour. At Wellington, while Fitzroy was boarding his ship, his effigy was ceremoniously burned on the beach, and a band played “The King of the Cannibal Islands’—a title which Domett had often applied to him in his stinging editorials. Fitzroy was gone. Domett had tasted, for the first time perhaps, the sweets of power, for he could claim that he had played a major part in bringing about the Governor’s recall. He had. even reached the ear of the great Gladstone. By strfinge chance. Governor Grey, Fitzroy’s successor, whose attitude to the Maoris was the opposite of Domett’s, was to lead the outspoken editor of the “Nelson Examiner," the would-be poet, to the Premiership of New Zealand. (To be continued.)

A pair of machines have been developed, according to LB.M., that talk to each other on the ’phone in computer language.