Waikiki (Brooke, set by C. Griffes) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


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.

First published in New Numbers, August 1914.
Input by Barbara Miller

Authorship

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920)

Three Poems

Date added to the website: 2004-03-25.

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