Salmon Fishing of Labrador

Isaac McLellan

By the wild Canadian shore,
By the sandy Labrador,
By the rocky Mingan isles
And where Anticosti smiles,
Countless are the salmon shoals,
Leaping where the salt tide rolls.

Rivers, streams, of crystal clearness
Pour thro' that extended strand
From thy river mouth, St. Lawrence,
To the coast of Newfoundland;
Far as where the Belle-isie Strait
Opens to the seas its gate.

Cold those rivers as the fountains
From the wilderness that flow;
Cold as torrents of the mountains,
Gelid with the ice and snow,
There, amid the salt abysses
Or the river's Springtime tide,
Gleaming, flashing, leaping, diving,
Shoals of noble salmon glide.

Where the river of St. John
Mingles with the ocean surf,
Brown with weedy rocks and sand drifts,
Green with bordering velvet turf,
There the angler with his tackle,
When the July suns are high,
From the dawning to the twilight,
Hastes to angle with the fly.

Near thy alder-skirted border,
Where the Rattling Run doth twine,
He erects his hut of branches,
Branch of hemlock and of pine;
Floors it with the cedar saplings,
Fragrant, soft as couch of kings:
There enjoying forest pastimes
And the sleep that labor brings.