​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