PAOA SEEKS OUT THE BODY OF HIS DEAD FRIEND LOHIAU
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
O Hiiaka-pa’i-kauhale;
Hiiaka-i-ka-pua-enaena;21
Hiiaka-i-ka-pua-lau-i;
O Hiiaka-noho-lae;22
Hiiaka-wawahi-lani;
Hiiaka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele,
Halanalana waimaka e hanini nei;
Wela mai ka maka o ka ulu o Ho’olono, e.
Ho’olono au o Ho’olei’a.
O Ho’olei’a au; o Kalei (au) a Paoa;
O Paoa au la, i lono oe.
TRANSLATION
The world is convulsed: the earth-plates sink
To the nether domain of Wakea;
Earth’s rooted foundations are broken;
Flame-billows lift their heads to the sky;
The ocean-caves and reefs, the peopled land
And the circle of island coast
Are whelmed in one common disaster:
The gleam of it reaches Kahiki:—
Such blush encircles the pale apple’s eye.
Heaven’s blotted out, the whole sky darkened;
Hoali’i’s cliffs are shadowed with gloom.
Now bellows the thunder of Winter;
Ku-lani-ha-ko’i’s banks are broken;
Down pours a pitiless deluge of rain;
There’s rumble and groan of the earthquake,
The reverberant roar of thunder,
The roof-stripping swoop of the tempest.
Tearing the thatch over Ele-uä,
Tearing the thatch over Ele-ao.
The freshet makes home for the water-fowl,
Flooding the thickets at Kehau,
The wide-spread waters of Kula-manu.
O Pele, fold back the curtains of heaven;
Thou Woman, consumer of Puna woods,
Swift thy foray in Hopoe’s fields:
The land of contending rains is wiped out,
And the lands that border Keäau.
Up springs the steam from her caldron,