All day long they ate with the resolute greed of brutes,
And turned from the pigs to the fish, and again from
the fish to the fruits,
And emptied the vessels of sauce, and drank of the
kava deep;
Till the young lay stupid as stones, and the strongest
nodded to sleep.
Sleep that was mighty as death and blind as a moonless
night
Tethered them hand and foot; and their souls were
drowned, and the light
Was cloaked from their eyes. Senseless together,
the old and the young,
The fighter deadly to smite and the prater cunning
of tongue,
The woman wedded and fruitful, inured to the pangs
of birth,
And the maid that knew not of kisses, blindly sprawled
on the earth.
From the hall Hiopa the king and his chiefs came stealthily
forth.
Already the sun hung low and enlightened the peaks
of the north;
But the wind was stubborn to die and blew as it blows
at morn,
Showering the nuts in the dusk, and e’en as
a banner is torn,
High on the peaks of the island, shattered the mountain
cloud.
And now at once, at a signal, a silent, emulous crowd
Set hands to the work of death, hurrying to and fro,
Like ants, to furnish the fagots, building them broad
and low,
And piling them high and higher around the walls of
the hall.
Silence persisted within, for sleep lay heavy on all;
But the mother of Tamatea stood at Hiopa’s side,
And shook for terror and joy like a girl that is a
bride.
Night fell on the toilers, and first Hiopa the wise
Made the round of the house, visiting all with his
eyes;
And all was piled to the eaves, and fuel blockaded
the door;
And within, in the house beleaguered, slumbered the
forty score.
Then was an aito dispatched and came with fire in
his hand,
And Hiopa took it.—“Within,”
said he, “is the life of a land;
And behold! I breathe on the coal, I breathe
on the dales of the east,
And silence falls on forest and shore; the voice of
the feast
Is quenched, and the smoke of cooking; the rooftree
decays and falls
On the empty lodge, and the winds subvert deserted
walls.”
Therewithal, to the fuel, he laid the glowing coal;
And the redness ran in the mass and burrowed within
like a mole,
And copious smoke was conceived. But, as when
a dam is to burst,
The water lips it and crosses in silver trickles at
first,
And then, of a sudden, whelms and bears it away forthright:
So now, in a moment, the flame sprang and towered
in the night,
And wrestled and roared in the wind, and high over
house and tree,
Stood, like a streaming torch, enlightening land and
sea.