KMERSON] UNWRITTEN LITERATUEE OF HAWAII 161 



It would follow from this, if the author is correct, that the musical 

 critic of to-day must be content to generalize somewhat and must 

 not be put out if the key is changed on repetition and if tempo and 

 rhythm depart at times from their standard gait. It is questionable 

 if even the experts in the palmy days of the hula attained such a 

 degree of skill as to be faultless and logical in these matters. 



It has been said that modern music has molded and developed it- 

 self under the influence of three causes, (1) a comprehension of the 

 nature of music itself, (2) a feeling or inspiration, and (3) the in- 

 fluence of poetry. Guided by this generalization, it may be said that 

 Hawaiian poetry was the nurse and pedagogue of that stammering 

 infant, Hawaiian music; that the words of the mele came before its 

 rhythmic utterance in song; and that the first singers were the priests 

 and the eulogists. Hawaiian poetry is far ahead of Hawaiian song 

 in the power to move the feelings. A few words suffice the poet with 

 which to set the picture before one's eyes, and one picture quickly 

 follows another; whereas the musical attachment remains weak and 

 colorless, reminding one of the nursery pictures, in which a few skele- 

 tal lines represent the human frame. 



Let us now for refreshment and in continued pursuit of our subject 

 listen to a song in the language and spirit of old-time Hawaii, com- 

 posed, however, in the middle of the nineteenth century. It is given 

 as arranged by Miss Lillian Byington, who took it down as she heard 

 it sung by an old Hawaiian woman in the train of Queen Liliuoka- 

 lani, and as the author has since heard it sung by Miss Byington's 

 pupils of the Kamehameha School for Girls. The song has been 

 slightly idealized, perhaps, by trimming away some of the super- 

 fluous i'i, but not more than is necessary to make it highly acceptable 

 to our ears and not so much as to take from it the plaintive bewitch- 

 ing tone that pervades the folk-music of Hawaii. The song, the mele, 

 is not in itself much — a hint, a sketch, a sweep of the brush, a lilt of 

 the imagination, a connotation of multiple images which no jugglery 

 of literary art can transfer into any foreign speech. Its charm, like 

 that of all folk-songs and of all romance, lies in its mysterious tug 

 at the heartstrings. 



25352— BuU. 38—09 11 



