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WĀʻEKAHI

O ke au i kahuli wela ka honua

O ke au i kahuli lole ka lani

O ke au i kukaiaka ka la.

E hoomalamalama i ka malama

O ke au o Makali’i ka po

O ka walewale hookumu honua ia

O ke kumu o ka lipo, i lipo ai

O ke kumu o ka Po, i po ai

O ka lipolipo, o ka lipolipo

O ka lipo o ka la, o ka lipo o ka po

                        Po wale hoi

                        Hanau ka po

 

At the time that turned the heat of the earth,

At the time when the heavens turned and changed,

At the time when the light of the sun was subdued

To cause light to break forth,

At the time of the night of Makalii (winter)

Then began the slime which established the earth,

The source of deepest darkness.

Of the depth of darkness, of the depth of darkness,

Of the darkness of the sun, in the depth of night,

                                    It is night,

                                    So was night born

 

 

There is a time when speech is all too frail,
There is a place where silence speaks the most:
What is the word to paint a human wail,
Or how heroic, speak where all is lost!
He who wears shackles mid his shackled host,
Shows valor’s steel to sturdily behave,
For life is Freedom’s last and real cost,
And so, the last resistance of the brave,
Is that stern silence which to chains prefers grave.

The scout at eve to Mickasukie came;
The stories of Twasinta were his boast,—
A stately chief, Palmecho was his name, 
Had numerous herds and fields, and had a host
Of servants in the vale from Tampa’s coast.
A proud descendant of a House of Spain,
Distinguished as a patron, gen’rous most,
Whoever sought his roof, sought not in vain,
And he who tarried once, must shelter there again.

Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.

Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars.

With apologies to James Whitcomb Riley.

(“The result of taking second place to girls at school is that the boy feels a sense of inferiority that he is never afterward able to entirely shake off.”—Editorial in London Globe against co-education.)

There, little girl, don’t read,

You’re fond of your books, I know,

But Brother might mope

If he had no hope

Of getting ahead of you.

It’s dull for a boy who cannot lead.

There, little girl, don’t read.

On the dusty earth-drum
   Beats the falling rain; 
Now a whispered murmur, 
   Now a louder strain. 

Slender, silvery drumsticks, 
    On an ancient drum, 
Beat the mellow music
    Bidding life to come. 

Chords of earth awakened, 
    Notes of greening spring, 
Rise and fall triumphant
    Over every thing. 

Slender, silvery drumsticks 
    Beat the long tattoo—
God, the Great Musician, 
    Calling life anew. 

And an old priest said, Speak to us of Religion.
     And he said:
     Have I spoken this day of aught else?
     Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
     And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hand hew the stone or tend the loom?
     Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
     Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself’ This for my soul, and this other for my body?”
     All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
     He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.
     The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
     And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.
     The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
     And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

     Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
     Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
     Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,
     The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. 
     For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.
     And take with you all men:
     For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

     And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
     Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
     And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
      You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

The prison-house in which I live

Is falling to decay,

But God renews my spirit’s strength

Within these walls of clay.

For me a dimness slowly creeps

Around earth’s fairest light,

But heaven grows clearer to my view,

And fairer to my sight.

It may be earth’s sweet harmonies

Are duller to my ear,

But music from my Father’s house

Begins to float more near.

Then let the pillars of my home

Crumble and fall away;

Lo, God’s dear love within my soul

Renews it day by day.

(“My wife is against suffrage, and that settles me.”—Vice-President Marshall.)

I.

My wife dislikes the income tax,

   And so I cannot pay it;

She thinks that golf all interest lacks,

   So now I never play it;

She is opposed to tolls repeal

   (Though why I cannot say),

But woman’s duty is to feel,

   And man’s is to obey.

II.

I’m in a hard position for a perfect gentleman,

   I want to please the ladies, but I don’t see how I can,

My present wife’s a suffragist, and counts on my support,

   But my mother is an anti, of a rather biting sort;

One grandmother is on the fence, the other much opposed,

   And my sister lives in Oregon, she thinks the question’s closed;

Each one is counting on my vote to represent her view.

   Now what should you think proper for a gentleman to do?

His friends went off and left Him dead
In Joseph’s subterranean bed,
Embalmed with myrrh and sweet aloes,
And wrapped in snow-white burial clothes.

Then shrewd men came and set a seal
Upon His grave, lest thieves should steal
His lifeless form away, and claim
For Him and undeserving fame.

“There is no use,” the soldiers said,
“Of standing sentries by the dead.”
Wherefore, they drew their cloaks around
Themselves, and fell upon the ground,
And slept like dead men, all night through,
In the pale moonlight and chilling dew.

A muffed whiff of sudden breath
Ruffled the passive air of death.

He woke, and raised Himself in bed;
    Recalled how He was crucified;
Touched both hands’ fingers to His head,
    And lightly felt His fresh-healed side.

Then with a deep, triumphant sigh,
He coolly put His grave-clothes by—
Folded the sweet, white winding sheet,
    The toweling, the linen bands,
    The napkin, all with careful hands—
And left the borrowed chamber neat.

His steps were like the breaking day:
    So soft across the watch He stole,
    He did not wake a single soul,
Nor spill one dewdrop by the way.

Now Calvary was loveliness:
    Lilies that flowered thereupon
Pulled off the white moon’s pallid dress,
    And put the morning’s vesture on.

“Why seek the living among the dead?
He is not here,” the angel said.

The early winds took up the words,
And bore them to the lilting birds,
The leafing trees, and everything
That breathed the living breath of spring.