​I offer to you, my people, this song of farewell;
I heard the melody in my sorrowing heart.
I pray that all of the ohanas of these holy islands
Will sing it always--
That the keiki will learn it from the kapuna
For years to come.
I have no other gift for you, as
Tomorrow I will no longer be your Queen.
 
They have called me a criminal and
Sentenced me to hard labor,
Though I am a mother, and my only crime
Is loving you.
How these businessmen hate motherhood--
They steal the mother whales
From our generous seas
And kill them in sight of their babies
Who will die in the deep waters
Without their mothers to feed and guide them.
They bring hungry dogs in their ships
And let them loose on our soft beaches
To attack the baby monk seals
Nursing in peace with their quiet mothers.
 
My old friend, Queen Victoria of Britain,
Can do nothing to halt these usurpers,
As she is gone now from this earth,
Blessed because her subjects never betrayed her.
America has unseated all their native Kings,
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce and all the others,
And now they thirst for more land beyond the seas
And more nations to eradicate. Though they live among us,
They hate all that we are: our hulas, our chants and our talk-stories--
Even our food and our brown bodies are distasteful to them.
 
What would their grandfathers think,
The ones who came in their black hats
With their black Bibles in their thin, bony hands?
They brought their Jesus, and we welcomed him,
As hospitality has always been the Hawaiian way.
The Buddha’s children also came to live with us;
They are part of our ohana now. They brought
Their own dances and their own chants.
Every summer they gather to honor their ancestors
In the ancient way, as the missionaries and their
Descendants never did.
 
I have read the Bible they brought, and I see
These descendants as the new Pharisees,
Living only for self-aggrandizement and gain.
Thieves and criminals themselves, they have set out
To crucify me.
But I must not harden my heart;
Like Jesus, I will remain silent.
I have no weapons, and as your mother
I have no wish for war,
As I cannot bear the thought of injury to any of you.
I must trust that President Grover Cleveland
Will redress this wrong, that American justice
Will prevail.
Surely he is an honorable man.
 
But today I am a prisoner in lovely Iolani Palace
Where I lived in peace when my brother was King.
I am confined to a single empty room
With no books, no newspapers, nothing
But a pencil to write down this song,
 
This song is for you;
Carry it, my children, in your breath.
I will never forget you, as your love is my consolation.
You are as sweet to me as the scent of wild plumeria,
As precious as the honu—the sea turtle whose babies are born
On our sacred shores.
Mahalo for honoring me as your monarch
Though I am crowned with thorns.
Let us sing our song together;
Let it be my last Aloha as your Queen