And so ends another Poetry month. It's amazing how time flies.

Aloha `Oe

Ha`aheo ka ua i nâ pali
Ke nihi a`ela i ka nahele
E hahai (uhai) ana paha i ka liko
Pua `âhihi lehua o uka

Hui:
Aloha `oe, aloha `oe
E ke onaona noho i ka lipo
One fond embrace,
A ho`i a`e au
Until we meet again

`O ka hali`a aloha i hiki mai
Ke hone a`e nei i
Ku`u manawa
`O `oe nô ka`u ipo aloha
A loko e hana nei

Maopopo ku`u `ike i ka nani
Nâ pua rose o Maunawili
I laila hia`ia nâ manu
Miki`ala i ka nani o ka lipo


Ke nihi a`ela i ka nahele
E hahai (uhai) ana paha i ka liko
Pua `âhihi lehua o uka

Hui:
Aloha `oe, aloha `oe
E ke onaona noho i ka lipo
One fond embrace,
A ho`i a`e au
Until we meet again

`O ka hali`a aloha i hiki mai
Ke hone a`e nei i
Ku`u manawa
`O `oe nô ka`u ipo aloha
A loko e hana nei

Maopopo ku`u `ike i ka nani
Nâ pua rose o Maunawili
I laila hia`ia nâ manu
Miki`ala i ka nani o ka lipo

- words and music by Queen Lili`uokalani

***

Proudly swept the rain by the cliffs
As it glided through the trees
Still following ever the bud
The `ahihi lehua of the vale

Chorus:
Farewell to you, farewell to you
The charming one who dwells in the shaded bowers
One fond embrace,
'Ere I depart
Until we meet again

Sweet memories come back to me
Bringing fresh remembrances
Of the past
Dearest one, yes, you are mine own
From you, true love shall never depart

I have seen and watched your loveliness
The sweet rose of Maunawili
And 'tis there the birds of love dwell
And sip the honey from your lips

- Translation by Queen Lili`uokalani

I Shall Never Be Different. Love Me.

I feel as though right now I should be petitioning to St. Jude, rather than to St. Cecilia. Still, the music comforts me. (Listen to the music, please. It and the words are a perfect couple.) Then there is this:

I am defeat
When it knows it
Can now do nothing
By suffering.

Maybe Grace is in part knowing when to give up on something.

Domestic Archaeology.

The Frenchie, like me, has been slowly but surely sifting through the effects of the past couple generations left to him when his parents passed away. Recently, he found a notebook belong to his mother where she'd jotted down favorite lyrics, poems, etc. Interesting to look back on these things and not have the same attachments as I have going through my own mother's things:



If you click on the image, it'll take you to the flickr site where you can find something larger and easier to read.

Hiver

Hiver, vous n'êtes qu'un villain
Eté est plaisant et gentil
Eté revêt champs, bois et fleurs
De sa Livrée de verdure
Et de maintes autres couleurs
Mais vous, Hiver, vous êtes plein
de neige, vent, pluie et grésil.
Hiver, vous n'êtes qu'un villain...

-Charles D'Orléans

(Apologies for the somewhat rough and on the fly translation:)

Winter

Oh, awful, awful Winter,
Summer is pleasant and sweet
Summer dresses up fields, woods and flowers
In verdant finery
touched with so many other colors
But you, Winter, you are filled
with snow, wind, rain and hail.
Oh, awful, awful Winter.

Also found in my wanders that Debussy set this to music.

Happy Easter!

(From one of my favorite Easter works.)



(When I chase down one of my Messiah scores, will get the words from this duet down; the sound quality and diction are both excellent, so not much of a problem understanding. Love the Tenor's "dancing on the forehead of God" metaphor. Back when I used to sing, loved a lot of the folks who got threatened with excommunication under the Council of Trent; saw them as communing with Angels.)

We're working on our bird songs now. So far, I only know a few: the robin, the cardinal, the jay, the sparrow, the titmouse, the chickadee.

This afternoon, was sitting out in the yard listening to the mad chatter and trying to isolate the individual songs. I think I got a few correct, anyway.

Closed my eyes for a bit and, while listening to the songs, got to thinking about Pan's flute. According to Edith Hamilton's Mythology, The satyr fell in love with a nymph called Syrinx. Terrified of him, she fled. Just as he was about to catch her, however, her sisters turned her into "a tuft of reeds." Not one to give up, Pan created a shepherd's flute from the reeds that Syrinx had become and beeswax.

A Musical Instrument

What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan
While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sat by the river.

'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan
(Laughed while he sat by the river),
'The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning