"Gaily sporting,
Pleasure courting,
Nought know we of care or sorrow.
We are free
As sun and sea,
What care we what comes to-morrow_?"

Louder still and louder, Pele roars within her lake of fire,
And the youths and maidens trembling look in fear up Mauna Loa,
Dreading sight of that grim figure stalking down the mountain side;
For when Pele claims her victims none the summons may avoid.
Pele calls for whom she chooses--whom she chooses goes,--and dies.

See! He comes! They start in terror. There, along the mountain side,
Death comes stalking, slowly, surely,--_Pele must be satisfied_.
Which among them will he summon, with his dreadful pointing finger?
All their hearts become as water, all their faces blanch with fear,
Deaths they suffer in the waiting, while dread Death draws near.

Now he stands in dreadful menace, seeking with a baleful eye
For the sweetest and the fairest--for the meetest sacrifice.
"Choose, O choose!"--they cry in terror; "choose your victim and be
gone,
For we each die deaths while waiting, till dread Pele's choice be
known!
Choose your victim, Priest of Pele, choose your victim and be gone!"

Slowly points the dreadful finger, marks the newly-wedded bride;
All the rest, save one, fall from her, as the living from the dead.
From the first of time's beginnings Pele ne'er has been gainsayed;