Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/118

 92 FIJI A^T> THE FIJIA^^S. uniform measure. This, however, is rare. The lines are sometimes, though not often, iambic ; in other instances, trochaic, frequently with a remaining syllable. The anapaest and dactyl are sometimes intro- duced. The subjoined is a literal translation of a native poem on the Sepulture and Resurrection of our Lord, and will serve as an example of a more elevated style of Fijian poetry : — " The Saviour of mankind has expired ; And the gloom of an eclipse covers the world. The Sun is ashamed, and ashamed is the Moon ! Joseph carried away the body, And buried it in a new tomb. The world's atonement buried lies : Three nights it lay in the grave. And the inhabitants of Judaea rejoiced ! Then of the angels there came two ; The faces of these two flamed like fire, And the children of war fell down as dead. They two opened the sepulchre of stone, And the Redeemer rose again from the dead. The linen lay folded in its place. I stamp underfoot the tooth of the grave ! And where now, Death, is thy might? Take to thyself thy envenomed sting : I pledge a wide-spread exemption. Shout triumphantly, sons of the earth ; For feeble now is the tooth of the law ! " Chorus. — " Suvaia suva." In chanting, the chorus is repeated at the end of each line. The love of the natives for their poetry amounts to a passion. They assemble nightly for recitation exercises, and enliven their daily tasks by frequent snatches of songs, sung to a sort of plaintive chant, limited to a few notes, and always in the major key. Some have thought it to resemble the singing in a Jewish synagogue. In detached fragments, frequently and often appropriately intro- duced, the poetry of Fiji is certainly shown to the greatest advantage. Indeed, there is no lack of poetic phraseology in the language, and all but the professed poets make use of it. Death is often spoken of as a sleep, and the same figure is used with reference to fluids in a congealed state. Dying is described by the same terms as the sunset. A swearer is said to be " armed with teeth," and ignorance is " the night of the mind." The native describes the furling of a sail in the same language as the bird folding its wings for rest : and the word which