Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

^{for Linus Chao}

Lao Ye sits at the edge of hala trees
where rolls of brown and yellow 
seas eat thorns of dried lauhala. 
He seeks Tai Nainai, finds 
a fishing canoe instead. 

Ma ke kai pōlena o Waimanu
aia ka manu kiko ʻeleʻele
e lele aʻe i ka lewa nuʻu
e lele ana i Kapō‘ula
Aloha aku, aloha mai ē

There are the kiʻi, ready and wet 
from the Qi of a horsehair brush.

Kū ka pae uli huli aku nei
kū ka pali uli huʻi ka makani
aniani ka lehua onaona
kū ka ʻōhiʻa a e ola ka honua
Aloha aku, aloha mai ē

Nā ‘aumakua steer him 
into the breeze that curls
through spines of bamboo trees.

‘O ke ao kea lohe iā ‘oe
hoʻolono kou nānea i ka wao akua
Hao mai ka ua ‘Awa o nā kama ē
Ua lele ‘oe i Kapō‘ula
a ua noa, a ua noa ē.

Lao Ye sits on the back of the fire dragon, 
smokes incense from Shandong to Hawaiʻi.
He stretches from cloud to ka nahele,
paints around the white of sky,
with blue, purple, and red.

Aloha aku, aloha mai ē
Aloha aku, aloha mai ē
No nā kupuna, he inoa.

I have made grief a gorgeous, queenly thing,
And worn my melancholy with an air.
My tears were big as stars to deck my hair,
My silence stunning as a sapphire ring.
Oh, more than any light the dark could fling
A glamour over me to make me rare,
Better than any color I could wear
The pearly grandeur that the shadows bring.
What is there left to joy for such as I?
What throne can dawn upraise for me who found
The dusk so royal and so rich a one?
Laughter will whirl and whistle on the sky—
Far from this riot I shall stand uncrowned,
Disrobed, bereft, an outcast in the sun.