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.
