MR DOMETT'S POEM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 1480, 25 November 1872, Page 3

MR DOMETT'S POEM.

(Nelson JSxaminer, Nov. 9.) We learn that Mr Domett' < promised poem, under the name of " 80-nolph and Ainoliin ; or, a South Sea Day Dream," has passed through the Press. Little appeal's to be known of it except that ifc is in twenty-four canto 3, so that ifc may be of epic dignity. We confess to awaiting its appearance with some impatience. If Mr Domett has done himself justice it will bo worth waiting for. But when did Mr Domett do himself justice ? Mr Domett is of the great potentialities. He would surprise no one who knows him by a gigantic success or a gigantic failure. However Waring splashes, ' : he splashes as none splashed before." No one can doubt the deep tragedy that a great poet might evolve from tho situation of the Maori, who foresees his own speedy disappearance from the face of the earth, yet fights manfully with a destiny that to him at least must seem blind, for of the true springs of the power of the race before whom he is withering, those of it with whom he is in immediate contact bear faint traces ; is it not even the vice 3, not tho high qualities of his supplanter; that prove the deadlier? That Mr Domett may rise to the height of this large argument, who that knows him will deny ? That ho will, those who know him best will be the last confidently to predict. Bufc why Eanolph ? We are not acquainted with any Englishman, in this century at lonst, whose godfathers and godmothers have been so left to themselves us to call him " Ranolph." The name we confess gives us an unpleasant presentiment of that sentimental philosophy and subtle metaphysical analysis, which has of late yeai'3 converted poet's rhymes into the likeness of clinical lectures on physical anatomy. Though Mr Browning has found in the morbid refinement of a certain phase of Italian life v fit setting for such disquisitions, and has set them forth in the obscurest language and the jaggedest rhymes that ever stood between a poet of high genius and those who would gladly listen if he sang now a3 he once sung, it may be hoped that tho " Dreamer of the Southern Seas " will develope the virgin tragedy which lies to his hand in a simple tale, simply told after the good old classic fashion. The deepest pathoa, the subtlest trains of thought, can be made very lval by these simple means, and the clear idiomatic diction and apt melody of rhythm by which true poets know how to barb and feather thought, though the highest genius and the art of an iEsehylus or a Shakespeare are none too much for the e3say. But we must not anticipate. Nothing from Mi? Domett can bo commonplace, whatever else it may bo, or capable of anticipation.