Waikiki



Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and tree
 Drift down the darkness.  Plangent, hidden from eyes
 Somewhere an `eukaleli' thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
 Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;
 And new stars burn into the ancient skies,
Over the murmurous soft Hawaian sea.

And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again,
 And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known,
An empty tale, of idleness and pain,
 Of two that loved -- or did not love -- and one
Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly,
A long while since, and by some other sea.


Waikiki, 1913