[Translation.]
Song
It has come, it has come; lo the Sun!
How I love the Sun that’s on high;
Below it swims Ka-wai-hoa,
Oa the slope inclined from Lehua.
On Kauai met I a pali,
A beetling cliff that bounds Milo-lii,
And climbing up Makua-iki,
Crawling up was Pua, the child,
An orphan that weeps out its tale.
The writer has rescued the following fragment from the wastebasket of Hawaiian song. A lean-to of modern verse has been omitted; it was evidently added within a generation:
Mele
Malua, [250] ki’i wai ke aloha,
Hoopulu i ka liko mamane.
Uleuleu mai na manu,
Inu wai lehua o Panaewa, [251]
E walea ana i ke onaona,
Ke one wali o Ohele.
Hele mal nei kou aloha
A lalawe i ko’u nui kino,
Au i hookohu ai,
E kuko i ka manao.
Kuhi no paha oe no Hopoe [252]
Nei lehua au i ka hana ohi ai.
Footnote 247:[ (return) ] Kawaihoa. The southern point of Niihau, which is to the west of Kauai, the evident standpoint of the poet, and therefore “below” Kauai.
Footnote 248:[ (return) ] Milo-lii. A valley on the northwestern angle of Kauai, a precipitous region, in which travel from one point to another by land is almost impossible.
Footnote 249:[ (return) ] Makua-iki. Literally “little father,” a name given to an overhanging pali, where was provided a hanging ladder to make travel possible. The series of palis in this region comes to an end at Milo-lii.
Footnote 250:[ (return) ] The Malua was a wind, often so dry that it sucked up the moisture from the land and destroyed the tender vegetation.
Footnote 251:[ (return) ] Panaewa was a woodland region much talked of in poetry and song.
Footnote 252:[ (return) ] Hopoe was a beautiful young woman, a friend of Hiiaka, and was persecuted by Pele owing to jealousy. One of the forms in which she as a divinity showed herself was as a lehua tree in full bloom.