Emily Dickinson Lexicon

WEL'A-WAY, exclam.

An exclamation expressive of grief or sorrow, equivalent to alas. It is a compound of Sax. wa, wo, and la, oh. The original is wa-la, which is doubtless the origin of our common exclamation, O la, and to this, wa, wo, is added. The true orthography would be wa la wa. But the word is, I believe, wholly obsolete.