[Translation.]
A Song
Hanalei is a hall for the dance in the pouring rain;
The stream-head is turned from its bed of fresh green;
Broken the dam that pent the water of love—
Naught now to hinder its rush to the vale of delight.
You’ve seen it.
Footnote 310:[ (return) ] Halau. The rainy valley of Hanalei, on Kauai, is here compared to a halau, a dance-hall, apparently because the rain-columns seem to draw together and inclose the valley within walls, while the dark foreshortened vault of heaven covers it as with a roof.
Footnote 311:[ (return) ] Kumano. A water-source, or, as here, perhaps, a sort of dam or loose stone wall that was run out into a stream for the purpose of diverting a portion of it into a new channel.
Footnote 312:[ (return) ] Liko. A bud; fresh verdure; a word much used in modern Hawaiian poetry.
Footnote 313:[ (return) ] Opiwai. A watershed. In Hawaii a knife-edged ridge as narrow as the back of a horse will often decide the course of a stream, turning its direction from one to the other side of the island.
Footnote 314:[ (return) ] Waioli (wai, water; oli, joyful). The name given to a part of the valley of Hanalei, also the name of a river.
The mele to which the above oli was a prelude is as follows:
Mele
Noluna ka hale kai, e ka ma’a-lewa,
Nana ka maka ia Moana-nui-ka-Lehúa.
Noi au i ke kai e mali’o.
Ane ku a’e la he lehúa ilaila—
Hopoe Lehúa ki’eki’e.
Maka’u ka Lehúa i ke kanáka,
Lilo ilalo e hele ai, ilalo, e.
Keaau iliili nehe; olelo ke kai o Puna
I ka ulu hala la, e, kaiko’o Puna.
Ia hoone’ene’e ia pili mai kaua,
E ke hoa, ke waiho e mai la oe;
Eia ka mea ino, he anu, e.
Aohe anu e!
Me he mea la iwaho kaua, e ke hoa,
Me he wai la ko kaua ili, e.
