The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1897-10-01
MOKUAWEOWEO: A PARAPHR

]
and Hawaiian Gazette
High above the cloudy girdle hung
around the mountains breast,
When the flames of sunset burned all
along the crimsoned west,
l stood on Mauna Loa's height by the
fiery fountains head
Saw the spires of Mauna Kea in the
evening blushing red.
But the twilight never fingers in the
tropics, when the sun
Sinks beyond the golden waters, and
his daily course is run,
The Southern Cross is trailing o'er the
dusky wings of night,
And the Polar Star is twinkling with
its pale and frosty light.
Here the god OF Desolation sits un-
challenged on his throne,
There is never bud nor blossom where
the icy breeze blown
From the northward lift the curtain
OF the smoke and vapor drawn
Ger the pahoehoe and ashes, where
unfathomed fissures yawn.
There is never bud nor blossom, froud
of fern or blade of grass.
Not a tiny moss or lichen TO tighten up
a dark crevasse.
Only clouds of sulphury vapor, from
the clefts among the stones,
And lambent tongues of fame aleap
from blowing cones.
High encamped on beds of lava, mid
the wastes of ice and snow,
Where the shattered rocks are light
ened by the crater 'ssfitful glow,
We gaze in awe and silence into the
wide and deep abyss,
Where the molten rivers run and the
fiery cataracts hiss.
All the vault of heaven is kindled with
weird unearthy glare,
From the burning pits and caldrons
where Geheuna's torches flare;
The rocks are rent asunder by the
stress of blood-stained waves,
And long reverberate thunders echo
through the believing caves.
The hills to their foundations shake by
the earthquakes shivering
shocks,
The loud resounding echoes of the
crash of falling rocks,
Till the night with fear and terror as
they boom from from fell to fell,
While the cliffs are drenched with
spindrift reeking red as rains Of
hell.
From the white heart of the furnace
and unfathomed deeps upsprung
Intermittent fiaring fountains that
Tapped with quivering tongues
The SCARED and riven boulders, and
enveloped every spire,
And drowning rocks were wallowing
in whirlpools of fire.
My wearied worn-out comrades had ex-
hausted fallen asleep,
alone of my companions stood in
awe upon the steep,
With the frosty stars above me SHIN
mering through the yellow haze
Trailed across the vault of heaven by
the crater's fitful blaze.
1 alone on Mauna Loa, when no human
eye but mine
Saw the fash of angry fountains, and
the splintered rocks ashine,
With the light by God enkindled on the
lonely mountain dome,
And the fires forever breaking in
surf of crimson foam.
Knew that miles and miles below us
there were palm and mango
groves,
With the shafts of moonlight stealing
into sweet and shady coves-
That the dews of night were kissing
the bright blossoms on the tree
And the rivers Tapped the yellow sands
by the margin of the sea.
In my loneliness I wondered if the
sun would shine again,
Would there ever be cessation of the
binding crimson rain?
Would the earth be green again. and
all things fair and bright,
And would e'er to human ears tell the
tale of this midnight?
Far aplifted Ger the world, 'bove its
storms of love and hate,
Above the wreck of thrones-the ever
varying pulse of fate,
Above the clash of human thought.
here with music of its own
The volcano roars, and burns for the
eve of God alone.
CHARLES H. EWART.
Dalbeattie, Scotland, August, 1897.