10. 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.