song?
Her returning, who shall console?

[Footnote 203: In the original, _He mau alualu ka, ha'i e
lawe_, literally "Some skins for another to take."]

This song almost explains itself. It is the soliloquy of a
lover estranged from his mistress. Imagination is alive in
eye and ear to everything that may bring tidings of her, even
of her unhoped-for return. Sometimes he speaks as if
addressing the woman who has gone from him, or he addresses
himself, or he personifies some one who speaks to him, as in
the sixth line: "Your day has flown, ..."

The memory of past vexation and anguish extorts the
philosophic remark, "No mortal goes scathless of love." He
gives over the past, seeks consolation in a new
attachment--he dives, _lu'u_, into the great ocean, "deep
waters," of love, at least in search of love. The old self
(selves), the old love, he declares to be only _alualu_,
empty husks.

He--it is evidently a man--sets forth the wealth of comfort,
opulence, that surrounds him in his new-found peace. The
scene, being laid in the land Kailua, Oahu--the place to
which the enchanted tree _Maka-lei_[204] was carried long ago,
from which time its waters abounded in fish--fish are
naturally the symbol of the opulence that now bless his life.
But, in spite of the new-found peace and prosperity that
attend him, there is a lonely corner in his heart; the old
question echoes in its vacuum, "Who'll greet her with song?
who shall console?"

[Footnote 204: _Maka-lei_. (See note _b_, p. 17.)]

[Page 84]

_Mele_

O Ewa, aina kai ula i ka lepo,
I ula i ka makani anu Moa'e,
Ka manu ula i ka lau ka ai,
I palahe'a ula i ke kai o Kuhi-a.

5 Mai kuhi mai oukou e, owau ke kalohe;
Aohe na'u, na lakou no a pau.
Aohe hewa kekahi keiki a ke kohe.
Ei' a'e; oia no palm ia.
I lono oukou ia wai, e, ua moe?

10 Oia kini poai o lakou la paha?
Ike aku ia ka mau'u hina-hina--
He hina ko'u, he aka mai ko ia la.