PAOA SEEKS OUT THE BODY OF HIS DEAD FRIEND LOHIAU
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
A white cloudy mountain of smoke:
She’s consuming the bowlders of Long-rock,
The treacherous paths of Lau-ahea.
A flash of lightning rends the sky!
O Ku-kuena, ’tis for you to dwell
In the flaming Eastern Gate of the Sun.
The plateau of Uwé-kahuna
Breathes the reek of burning woods;
There’s pelting of heads with falling stones
And loud the clang of the smitten plain,
Confused with the groan of the earthquake.
Yet this cools not the rock-eater’s rage:
The Goddess grinds her teeth in the Pit.
Lo, tilted rock-plates melt like snow—
Black faces that shine like a mirror—
Sharp edges that bite the foot of a man,
The traveler’s dread in the glare of the sun.23
The fire-flood swells in the upland—
A robber-flood—it dries up the streams.
Here’s cliff for god’s jumping, when wild their sport;
Deep the basin below, and boiling hot.
The Goddess gnashes her teeth and the reek
Of her breath flies to the farthest shore.
Thine was the fault, O Goddess, thine, a
Jealous passion at all times and places—
The snap and spring of a surly dog.
Let your gnashing range to its limit,
Till it reaches the fringe of your skirt,
Your hot paü at Wai-welawela.
Trample down, O Ku, these ominous clouds;
Let them sag and fall at Ulu-nui.
They flatten, they break; look, they spread.
White loom, now, the clouds of Ulu-lani;
Fierce blazes the Sun, and Thunder
Unrolls his black curtains on high.
Then bellows his voice from the cloud—
The ominous cloud that swallows the trees.
From the crest of Moku-aweö
Pele pours out her body, her self—
A turmoil of rain and of sea-fowl.