(The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, May 1, 1897)
KAHIKINUI AND KAUPO.
—
[For the Advertiser and Gazette.]
A land where the blooms never blow in,
A land that is wasted and wan,
A land where the streams never flow in,
A land lying under a ban!
The slopes of the mountain are paven
With lava and ashes and sand,—
The mark of the fire-fiend engraven
On every road of the land.
The wind from the north as it passes,
With the cloud-rack driven before,
Whistles loud in the gloomy crevasses;
The boom of the surf on the shore
Sounds faintly and far in the distance,
Low rumbling through wave-worn caves;
The cliffs with unyielding resistance
Meet the onset of tumbling waves.
Abroad in the far scattered spaces
The rocks are embroidered in green;
The weft of the rank grasses graces
The rifts and crannies between
Dead rivers of lava and ashes.
And clefts that are sunless and deep;
The glint of a golden gleam flashes
On rocks where the soft mosses creep.
Passing on to the northward, the ranges
Grow brighter and glow in the sun,
The landscape in front of us changes,
Now where the red rivers had run
Are patches of green on the mountains,
And clefts with the weft of the bloom
Enwoven in steeps by the fountains
That drip in a twilight of gloom.
The villages cling to the ledges
As nests of the birds to the eaves,
O’erhanging the steeps and their edges
Where nature a tapestry weaves,
Unfolden afar till it reaches
With green hands each bowlder and tree,
And meets with its bloom on the beaches
The kiss of the Sibilant Sea.
Waialua's swift waters in thunder
Leap from the giddy green verge.
The arrows of Sunshine slip under
The leaves, to the foam and the surge.
And painted in hues opalescent
The spray that ascends from the deeps,
Like diamonds and rubies liquescent
Hung over the face of the steeps.
The cliffs echo back the low laughters,
And jubilant songs of the brooks
Wild vines clamber over the rafters
And droop o’er the blossomy nooks.
Far down in this blessed oasis
Lie blossoms of scarlet and gold,
And trailers from tips to the bases
The ramparts in mercy enfold.
The hau and the wild apples nestle
In depths of the unfooted dells,
Lauhalas with steep ledges wrestle,
The chimes of covolvoli bells
Are over the glen’s verdant reaches,
The waters unfettered and free
Leap over the gold of the beaches
“To be sapped evermore of the sea.”
CHARLES H. EWART1.
Dalbeattie, Scotland, February, 1897.
Footnotes
- Throughout the 1890s, Ewart sent poems from Scotland to Hawaiian publications reflecting on his time spent in the islands. Other East Maui poems include “Haleakala”, “Koolau Woods”, “Waiohuli, East Maui”, “The Summit of Haleakala”, “Eastern Shore of Maui”, and “Wailuanui, Maui”.