ringe set ahout swampy Ai-po is
A feather that flaunts in spite of the pinching frost.
5 Her herbage is pelted, stung by the rain;

Bruised all her petals, and moaning in cold
Mokihana's sun, his wat'ry beams.
I have acted in good faith and honor,
My complaint is only to you--
10 A matter that touches my life.

Best watch within and toward Ka-ula;
Question each breeze, note every rumor,
Even the whisper of Malua-kele.
Search high and search low, unobservant.

15 There is life in the breath from her body,
Fond caress by a hand not inconstant.
Like fissured groves of coral
Stand the ragged clumps of lehua.
Many the houses, easy the life.

20 You have your portion--of love;
Humanity smells at the door.
Aye, indeed.

The imagery of this poem is peculiarly obscure and the
meaning difficult of translation. The allusions are so local
and special that their meaning does not carry to a distance.

Wai-aleale is the central mountain mass of Kauai, about 6,000
feet high. Its summit, a cold, fog-swept wilderness of swamp
and lake beset with dwarfish growths of lehua, is used as the
symbol of a woman, impulsively kind, yet in turn passionate
and disdainful. The physical attributes of the mountain are
ascribed to her, its spells of frosty coldness, its gloom and
distance, its fickleness of weather, the repellant
hirsuteness of the stunted vegetation that fringes the
central swamp--these things are described as symbols of her
temper, character, and physical make-up. The bloom and
herbage of the wilderness, much pelted by the storm, are
figures to represent her physical charms. But spite of all
these faults and imperfections, a perennial fragrance, as of
mokihana, clings to her person, and she is the object of
devoted love, capable of weaving the spell of fascination
about her victims.

This poem furnishes a good example of a peculiarity that
often is an obstacle to the understanding of Hawaiian poetry.