[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 halau [243] 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 hauna [245] mai nei ka puka o ka hale.
Ea!
Footnote 237:[ (return) ] 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.
Footnote 238:[ (return) ] Ai-po. A swamp that occupies the summit basin of the mountain, in and about which the thorny lehua trees above mentioned stand as a fringe.
Footnote 239:[ (return) ] Hau-a-iliki. A word made up of hau, dew or frost, and iliki, to smite. The a is merely a connective.
Footnote 240:[ (return) ] Mokihana. The name of a region on the flank of Wai-aleale, also a plant that grows there, whose berry is fragrant and is used in making wreaths.
Footnote 241:[ (return) ] Ka-ula. A small rocky island visible from Kauai.
Footnote 242:[ (return) ] Malua-kele. A wind.
Footnote 243:[ (return) ] Halau. The shed or house which sheltered the canoe, wa’a, which latter, as we have seen, was often used figuratively to mean the human body, especially the body of a woman. Kamau ke ea i ka halau might be translated “persistent the breath from her body.” “There’s kames o’ hinny ’tween my luve’s lips.”
Footnote 244:[ (return) ] Wawae-noho. Literally the foot that abides; it is the name of a place. Here it is to be understood as meaning constancy. It is an instance in which the concrete stands for the abstract.
Footnote 245:[ (return) ] Hauna. An odor. In this connection it means the odor that hangs about a human habitation. The hidden allusion, it is needless to say, is to sexual attractiveness.