[phillips-wolley] SKETCHES OF THE ISLANDS 179 



Autumn Salmon Run. 



Vague space, and in the hush, Dawn's pencil drew 

 On the damp clouds of darkness, line by line 



Peaks and vast headlands, while a fresh wind blew 

 Sharp with the stinging kisses of the brine 

 Pungent with perfume of the sun-burnt pine — 



Through drifting veils of filmy forest smoke 



Filtered the rose-pink promise of the day 

 The sea plains heaved, the tide rip laughing woke — 



Beyond the sun limned shallows of the bay 



Ocean, a palpitating opal, lay — 



Misty, mysterious. Throbbing fairy fire 



Coursed through its veins and all the madcap throng 



Which cradles in the tide rip, Ocean's choir 



In stoles of roughened silver, deep voiced, strong, 

 Danced as it sang the young tide's meeting song — 



Working the sea to madness. Sudden waves 

 Roared by the cliffs, fretted the canopies 



Written with runes, and echoed in the caves. 

 There was no wind to swing the slender trees, 

 And yet, through fields of calm, ran racing seas. 



Strange eddies came and went — The black toothed rocks 

 Were whelmed in waters piled upon an heap — 



Louder and wilder grew the thunder shocks 



Of the tempestuous rip. Beyond — the Deep 

 Lay calm and smiling, mother-like asleep. 



Then fell a miracle. The waters knew 



Some deep sea call, and their swift tides became 



Incarnate, and sudden incarnate grew 



Their shifting lights — Argent and azure flame 



Drave through the deep. The salmon pilgrims came. 



A pilgrimage foredoomed, from depths profound 

 To grey Alaskan waters, turgid, pent 



Mid mildewed pines, where never sun nor sound 

 Of ocean's song can reach — The last event, 

 To rot on glacial mud, frayed, leprous, spent. 



Note. — The salmon pass East Point on Saturnia Island in the earlyTautumn 

 season of forest fires, on their way to grim Alaskan waters, where most (all ?) of them 

 die. 



