Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
Waikiki
By Rollin Mallory Doggett (18311901)T
Stands sentry ’round the crescent shore,
And algeroba, bent with years,
Keeps watch beside the lanai door.
The cool winds fan the mango’s cheek,
The mynah flits from tree to tree,
And zephyrs to the roses speak
Their sweetest words at Waikiki.
Escaped behind a coral wall,
The lisping wavelets laugh and leap,
Nor heed old ocean’s stern recall.
All day they frolic with the sands,
Kiss pink-lipped shells in wanton glee,
Make windrows with their patting hands,
And, singing, sleep at Waikiki.
Is shading down the gold to gray,
And on the reef the flaring light
Of brown-armed fisher, far away,
Dyes red the waves that thunder by
The sturdy bulwarks of the sea,
And breaking into ripplets, die
Upon the breast of Waikiki.
And shadow of a rugged face,
With iron limbs and shoulders bare—
The chieftain of a dusky race
Whose hostile front, with lifted lance,
And war-prows flecking all the sea,
Swept through the palms with bold advance
Along the shores of Waikiki.
By menace or the spear of foe,
The misty columns move in force,
Their chieftain leading as they go,
Up, up Nuuanu’s rocky bed
Till, looking down through clouds, they see
The beetling front of Diamond Head
And silver sands of Waikiki.
And o’er the Pali’s awful side,
With shout and stroke and battle-surge
Is poured a shrieking human tide.
Then all is still; the work is done;
And thus the shadows come to me
When twilight clouds, kissed by the sun,
Have bronzed the shores of Waikiki.
Come distant voices half divine;
While mingled with the ylangylang’s scent
Is breath of sage and mountain pine;
And from Diablo’s vine-clad feet,
From desert bleak and green Maumee,
Are wafted strains to me as sweet
As e’er were heard at Waikiki.
O Waikiki! O scene of peace!
O home of beauty and of dreams!
No haven in the isles of Greece
Can chord the harp to sweeter themes;
For houries haunt the broad lanais,
While scented zephyrs cool the lea,
And, looking down from sunset skies,
The angels smile on Waikiki.
Tributes of Hawaiian Verse. 1882.