THE LAME FISHERMAN—HIS EPIC RECITAL CELEBRATING PELE
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
Elieli, kau mai!
TRANSLATION
Of Pele, her warfare in Kahiki
With her sister Na-maka-o-ka-ha’i;
Of her flight to the land of Hawaii,
A flight like the eye-shot of dawn,
A flight like the lightning’s flash,
That rivals the full of the moon!
Wonder and awe possess me!
For Pele the ocean sleeps afar,
For Pele the godlike one!
A surge now cradles the islands
And breaks on the land Hana-kahi,
O’erflooding the sands of Wai-o-lama.
God’s temple is roofed with the fingers,
And the thumb is lifted in earnest prayer
By the concourse met in the uplands.
High piles the surf that sweeps from Kahiki;
It breaks at the foot of Kilauea;
Is driven back by the hot lava plates.
Now calls from the wayside a human voice;
Your suitor, Goddess who rifled the bloom
From my Ola’an park of lehua
That smile in the lap of Heeia
And the wreath-goddess Kukuena.
What a bestial and nondescript mix-up
Embroiled our chief in the thickets of Puna!
What a passionate mounting! what a stay!
Small show of regard for your fellow peers!
Wonder and awe possess me!
Wild the sea-mist at Kohala-loa,
Sea roughed by the breeze from the upper hills,
Sea that peeps o’er the cliffs of Kupehau,
Invading the groves of pandamus;
It reaches the lowlands of Maui—
The sea of this Goddess, this Queen.
The lehuas are twisted like garlands
At the touch of this sea of god Pele;
For Pele, indeed, is my god.
Wonder and awe possess me!