ese poems, they will not be found easy of comprehension.
The local allusions, the point of view, the atmosphere that
were in the mind of the savage are not in our minds to-day,
and will not again be in any mind on earth; they defy our
best efforts at reproduction. To conjure up the ghostly
semblance of these dead impalpable things and make them live
again is a problem that must be solved by each one with such
aid from the divining rod of the imagination as the reader
can summon to his help.

Now for the play, the song:

_Mele no Ka Hula Ala'a-papa_

MAHELE-HELE I

PAUKU 1

A Koolau wau, ike i ka ua,
E ko-kolo la-lepo ana ka ua,
E ka'i ku ana, ka'i mai ana ka ua,
E nu mai ana ka ua i ke kuahiwi,
5 E po'i ana ka ua me he nalu la.
E puka, a puka mai ka ua la.
Waliwali ke one i ka hehi'a e ka ua;
Ua holo-wai na kaha-wai;
Ua ko-ke wale na pali.
10 Aia ka wai la i ka ilina,[126] he ilio,
He ilio hae, ke nahu nei e puka.

[Translation]

_Song for the Hula Ala'a-papa._

CANTO I

STANZA 1

'Twas in Koolau I met with the rain:
It comes with lifting and tossing of dust,
Advancing in columns, dashing along.
The rain, It sighs In the forest;
5 The rain, it beats and whelms, like the surf;
It smites, it smites now the land.
Pasty the earth from the stamping rain;
Full run the streams, a rushing flood;
The mountain walls leap with the rain.
10 See the water chafing its bounds like a dog,
A raging dog, gnawing its way to pass out.

This song is from the story of Hiiaka on her journey to Kauai
to bring the handsome prince, Lohiau, to Pele. The region is
that on the windward, _Koolau_, side of Oahu.

[Footnote 126: _Ilina_. A sink, a place where a stream sinks
into the earth or sand.]

[Page 60]

PAUKU 2