[Translation.]
Song
The wind-beaten stream of Wailua
Is tossed into waves from the sea;
Salt-drenched are the leaves of the hau,
The stalks of the taro all rotted—
’Twas the crop of Maka’u-kiu,
The flowers of kukui are a telltale,
A messenger sped by the gale
To warn the canoe to depart.
Pray you depart!
Hot-foot, she’s off with her pack—
A bundle red-stained with the mud—
And ghost-swift she breasts Malu-aka.
Quest follows like smoke—lost is her companion;
Fierce the wind plucks at the leaves,
Grabs—by mistake—her burden, the man.
Despairing, she falls to the earth,
And, hugging the hillock of sand,
Sobs out her soul on the beach Mo-mo-iki.
A tale this wrung from my heart,
Not told by the tongue of man.
Wrong! yet right, was I, my friend;
My love after all was for you,
While I lived a vagabond life there and here,
Sowing my vagrom tears in all roads—
Prompt my payment of debt to your house—
Yes, truly, I’m wrong!