The Story of Hawaii (Illustrated Edition). Fowke Gerard

      Ha, e!

      2

      A Puna au, i Kuki'i au, i Ha'eha'e,

      Ike au i ke a kino-lau lehua.

      He laau malalo o ia pohaku.

      Hanohano Puna e, kehakeha i ka ua,

      Káhiko mau no ia no-laila.

      He aina haaheo loa no Puna;

      I haaheo i ka hala me ka lehua;

      He maikai maluna, he a malalo;

      He kelekele ka papa o Mau-kele.

      Kahuli Apua e, kele ana i Mau-kele.

      [Translation]

       Song

      (Bombastic style)

      Thou art Hilo, Hilo, flood-gate of heaven.

      Hilo has power to wring out the rain.

      Let Hilo turn here and turn there;

      Hilo's kept from employ, somber with rain;

      Pili-keko roars with full stream;

      The feathers of Hilo bristle with cold,

      And her hail-stones smite on the sand.

      She lies without motion, with upturned face,

      The fire-places pillowed with ashes;

      The bullets of rain are slapping the land,

      Pitiless rain turmoiling Pai-kaka.

      So, indeed.

      2

      In Puna was I, in Ku-ki'i, in Ha'e-ha'e,

      I saw a wraith of lehua, a burning bush,

      A fire-tree beneath the lava plate.

      Magnificent Puna, fertile from rain,

      At all times weaving its mantle.

      Aye Puna's a land of splendor,

      Proudly bedight with palm and lehua;

      Beauteous above, but horrid below,

      And miry the plain of Mau-kele.

      Apua upturned, plod on to Mau-kele.

       Mele

      Kau lilua i ke anu Wai-aleale;

He maka halalo ka lehua makanoe;²³⁷

He lihilihi kuku ia no Aipo,²³⁸ e;

O ka hulu a'a ia o Hau-a-iliki;²³⁹

      Ua pehi 'a e ka ua a éha ka nahele,

      Maui ka pua, uwe éha i ke anu,

I ke kukuna la-wai o Mokihana.²⁴⁰

      Ua hana ia aku ka pono a ua pololei;

      Ua hai 'na ia aku no ia oe;

      O ke ola no ia.

O kia'i loko, kia'i Ka-ula,²⁴¹

      Nana i ka makani, hoolono ka leo,

Ka halulu o ka Malua-kele;²⁴²

      Kiei, halo i Maka-ike-ole.

Kamau ke ea i ka halau²⁴³ a ola;

He kula lima ia no Wawae-noho,²⁴⁴

      Me he puko'a hakahaka la i Waahila

      Ka momoku a ka unu-lehua o Lehua.

      A lehulehu ka hale pono ka noho ana,

      Loaa kou haawina--o ke aloha,

Ke hauna²⁴⁵ mai nei ka puka o ka hale.

      Ea!

      [Translation]

       Song

      Wai-aleale stands haughty and cold,

      Her lehua bloom, fog-soaked, droops pensive;

      The thorn-fringe set ahout swampy Ai-po is

      A feather that flaunts in spite of the pinching frost.

      Her herbage is pelted, stung by the rain;

      Bruised all her petals, and moaning in cold

      Mokihana's sun, his wat'ry beams.

      I have acted in good faith and honor,

      My complaint is only to you--

      A matter that touches my life.

      Best watch within and toward Ka-ula;

      Question each breeze, note every rumor,

      Even the whisper of Malua-kele.

      Search high and search low, unobservant.

      There is life in the breath from her body,

      Fond caress by a hand not inconstant.

      Like fissured groves of coral

      Stand the ragged clumps of lehua.

      Many the houses, easy the life.

      You have your portion--of love;

      Humanity smells at the door.

      Aye, indeed.

      The imagery of this poem is peculiarly obscure and the meaning difficult of translation. The allusions are so local and special that their meaning does not carry to a distance.

      Wai-aleale is the central mountain mass of Kauai, about 6,000 feet high. Its summit, a cold, fog-swept wilderness of swamp and lake beset with dwarfish growths of lehua, is used as the symbol of a woman, impulsively kind, yet in turn passionate and disdainful. The physical attributes of the mountain are ascribed to her, its spells of frosty coldness, its gloom and distance, its fickleness of weather, the repellant hirsuteness of the stunted vegetation that fringes the central swamp--these things are described as symbols of her temper, character, and physical make-up. The bloom and herbage of the wilderness, much pelted by the storm, are figures to represent her physical charms. But spite of all these faults and imperfections, a perennial fragrance, as of mokihana, clings to her person, and she is the object of devoted love, capable of weaving the spell of fascination about her victims.

      This poem furnishes a good example of a peculiarity that often is an obstacle to the understanding of Hawaiian poetry. It is the breaking up of the composition into a number of parts that have but a loose seeming connection the one with the other.

²³⁶ Full form, pahula-hula.

²³⁷ Lehua makanoe. The lehua trees that grow on the top of Wai-aleale, the mountain mass of Kauai, are of peculiar form, low, stunted, and so furzy as to be almost thorny, kuku, as mentioned in the next line.