PAOA COMES BEFORE PELE
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
Then She spread out Kahiki-ku;
She kindled her fires; the flames leapt high.
The Goddess covers her footprints—
The foot-marks of Goddess Pele—
She treads the path of the heavens;
Swoops down and lands at Polapola.
She dwells in the level island plain.
Down fall the pillars of Kakihi;
The wind topples over the ruins;
Down tumble the sun-kissing clouds;
Down sinks the blood-red eye of Heaven
And big-bellied clouds that loom at sea.
Pele heaves in sight at Nihoa—
That limpet stuck to Lehua’s base.
From famed Kaua’i to Oahu;
Thence on to Mother Hina’s isle;
To Lana’i of Kanaloa;
To Mani and, last, to Hawaii:
This the route of the Woman—Pele.
Then she rubs her fire-sticks to a blaze:
Up flames her touchwood, kindling the heavens.
Earth sees the flash of lightning, hears the boom
Of thunder echoed by mountain walls—
Rocks flung in space bombard the day,
Shaking the mountain to its base.
The firmament sags, clings to the earth;
Hawaii is lost in Her smoke,
At the passion-heat of the Goddess.
Down clatters the rain from the sky—
A damper this to the Goddess’ fires;
It rouses the wrath of Pele.
Keep silence! retort not! never a word!
’Tis the voice of Pele; she’s my God.
The wind veers; there’s far-off corruscation;
The thunder wrenches heaven’s gates;
A sobbing of rain in the mountains,
The crash of thunder and earthquake;
Old tabus take flight to the ocean.
Now starts up the Earth-shaker Kane,
And Kane, the whirl-wind-breeder—