Vancouver by Rail

A scrap of hill on a grey sky;

Huge claws of distance powdering up

A mass of naked, dead-white plains;

And bare posts keeping decent step—

Here’s gold for memory’s rusted bins,

Rich purple for her floating floors,

Queer treasure to sift up behind

A brain’s uneasily-guarded doors.

Someone claims silver rivers soon:

All beauty’s down the line, I know—

Blunt trees and mountains staggering

Under a dazzling drag of snow;

And there the silly fish of thought

Will not find twitching-space for a fin.

As for this cold, thin element,

They gulp it quickly, deeply, in.