PAOA SEEKS OUT THE BODY OF HIS DEAD FRIEND LOHIAU
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
Now boils the lake of the Goddess:
In Ka-ú an oasis-park remains;
Her smoke covers Puna with night.
What a robbery this, to crush the flowers!
My bodily self, my lehuas, gone!
My precious lehuas, clean down to Puna!
And Puna—the land is trenched and seared!
The smoke that o’erhangs it, that I can see.
High surf in the Pit, turmoiling the sky—
The god who ate Puna’s Lehuas,
She ’twas laid waste green-robed Hawaii.
The heavens—let them rend, Hiiaka!
Plunge you in the wild tossing sea;
And you, who delight in the calm sea;
Hiiaka, thou thatcher of towns,
Hiiaka, soul of the flame-bud;
Hiiaka, emblemed in ti-bud;
Hiiaka, who dwells on the headland;
Hiiaka, who parts heaven’s curtains;
Hiiaka—of Pele’s own heart!
These tears well from eyes hot with weeping,
The eyes of this scion, this herald:
I proclaim that he’s outcast and exiled.
’Tis I, Paoä announce this:
He speaks what is ment for your ear!
Source notes
1Lawakua, an intimate companion, a friend. ↑
2Ua a ka lipoa, a fine, cold rain; a Scotch mist. ↑
3Lala, to bask in the sunlight. ↑
4Oma’o-lala, a place in upper Ola’a, named from the bird oma’o. ↑
5Aina i ka houpu a Kane, a proverbial expression applied to Puna, signifying the affection in which Puna was held. ↑
6A’aka, an ocean cave (definition not given in the dictionary). ↑
7Nawele ka maka o Hina-ulu-ohi’a. By metonymy, a figure of speech for which the Hawaiian poets showed great fondness, the name of the goddess, or superior being, Hina-ulu-ohi’a, is here used instead of the fruit which seems to have been her emblem. This fruit, the ohi’a puakea, is a variety of the ohi’a ai, or mountain apple, as it is commonly called. The common variety is of a deep red color shading into purple; but this variety, departing from the usual rule, is of a pale lemon color. This pale variety shows a faint pink or reddish ring about the maka, or eye where the flower was implanted. The poet’s fancy evidently makes a comparison between this delicate aureole and the dim glow by which the volcanic fire made itself perceived in its periphery at Kahiki. ↑
8Kahaea, a pile of white cumulus clouds, or a single large cloud, which was regarded by weather prophets, soothsayers and diviners as a significant portent. ↑
9Ku-lani-ha-ko’i. The old Hawaiians imagined that somewhere in the heavens was an immense reservoir of water, and that a heavy downpour of rain was due to the breaking of its banks. When the clouds of storm and rain gathered thick and black, they saw in this phenomenon a confirmation of their belief, which gained double assurance when the clouds discharged their watery contents. ↑
10Eleua … Eleao. When a Hawaiian house had a door at each end, the door at one end was named Ele-ua, that at the other end Ele-ao. ↑
11Kula-manu. A plain or tract of land that was flooded in wet weather and thus converted for a time into a resort for water-fowl, was termed a kula-manu or bird plain. ↑
12Wahi’a ka lani. This passive form of the verb has here the force of entreaty almost equivalent to the imperative. The opening here spoken of was the parting and drawing aside of the dark clouds that shut in the heavens, an opening that would be equivalent to the restoration of peace and good will. ↑
13Ku-lili-ka-ua, the name applied to a grove of pandanus in Puna. ↑
14Pohaku-loa, the name of a rocky ledge or cliff in Puna. ↑
15Lau-ahea. This was a deceitful voice, a vocal Will-o’-the-wisp, that was sometimes heard by travelers and that enticed them into the wilderness or thicket there to be entrapped in some lua meke or fathomless pit. ↑