The shady groves there enchant them,
The scarlet plumes of lehua.
Love-dalliance now by the water-reeds,
Till cooled and appeased by the rain-mist.
Pour on, thou rain, the two heads press the pillow:
Lo, prince and princess stir in their sleep!
The scene of this mele is laid on one of the little bird-islands that lie to the northwest of Kauai. The iwa bird, flying heavily to his nesting place in the wiry grass (kala-pahee), symbolizes the flight of a man in his deep-laden pirogue, abducting the woman of his love. The screaming sea-birds that warn him off the island, represented as watch-guards of the shark-god Kuhai-moana (whose reef is still pointed out), figure the outcries of the parents and friends of the abducted woman.
After the first passionate outburst (Puni’a iluna o ka Halau-a-ola) things go more smoothly (ola, ...). The flight to covert from the storm, the cove at the base of Le-hu-a, the shady groves, the scarlet pompons of the lehua—the tree and the island have the same name—all these things are to be interpreted figuratively as emblems of woman’s physical charms and the delights of love-dalliance.
Mele
PALE III