The Sixth Era

THE SIXTH ERA.

A sacred emblem ¹ is the kahili of Kuakamano
That sends out its stiff branches as a sacred frill,
Which fills the faint-hearted with awe,
But brings such ones to claim friendship. p. 21
Those are beings who eat by gushing waters,
Who eat also by the dashing sea,
They live in nests inside ditches,
There in hollow places the parent rats dwell,
There huddle together the little mice.
It is they who keep the changes of the month.

The mites of the land,
The mites of the water,
’Tis Mehe the reddish seaweed
Whose lashes stand,
That hides and peeps.
There are rats inland, there are rats at sea.
There are also rabbits
That were born in the night of the crash--
They were born in the night that moved away.
The tiniest mice move by crawling;
The tiny mice spring as they move.
They run over the pebbles,
The propagating pebbles where no inland ohia bear.
A puny child born in the night of the crash.
They gave birth to beings that leaped in the night, that moved away
The child of Uli-a-kama last night.
                          ’Tis night.

Footnotes

20:1 The royal plume.