Pokarekare Ana

Soldiers ditties, composed in about 1914 and arranged by P. H. Tomoana in 1917 Pkarekare ana ng wai o Waiapu, 1 Whiti atu koe hine marino ana e. They are agitated the waters of Waiapu, But when you cross over girl they will be calm.

E hine e hoki mai ra. Ka mate ahau 2 I te aroha e.

Tuhituhi taku reta tuku atu taku rngi, Kia kite t iwi raru raru ana e. Whati whati taku pene 3 ka pau aku pepa, Ko taku aroha mau tonu ana e. E kore te aroha e maroke i te r, Mkk tonu i aku roimata e.

Oh girl return to me, I could die of love for you.

I have written my letter I have sent my ring, so that your people can see that I am troubled. My pen is shattered, I have no more paper But my love is still steadfast. My love will never be dried by the sun, It will be forever moistened by my tears.

Footnotes
1. Ng wai o Wai-apu is Tomoana's 1917 East Coast variant. The original 1914 Northland version was probably Ng wai o Hoki-anga. And ng wai o Rotorua is a popular tourist variation.
It flows better, and the 'r' and 'o' sounds are pleasant.

2. Ka ma-te a-ha-u / I te a-ro-ha e Ka ma-te a-au i / - te a-ro-ha e is the Sam Freedman variation . . . . and a-ro-ha e is pronounced "are RAW ha AIR." It is not "a ROW ha EH." 3. Whati whati taku pene shattered my pen. Kua whati taku pene broken, my pen has been is an alternative.

Arizio Sweeting (2012). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/.