The cocoa, with its crest of spears,
Stands sentry 'round the crescent shore,
And algaroba, 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.
The closing curtain of the night
Is shading down to gold the 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 riplets, die
Upon the breast of Waikiki.
And all unchecked in martial course
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 at Waikiki.
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Like truant children of the deep
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.
Now come wild echoes through the air,
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-proas flecking all the sea,
Sweep thro' the palms with bold advance
Along the shores of Waikiki.
On, on! The foe has reached the verge,
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.
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