O' to be heard by the minstrel sea,
Run away to the cliffs, blithesome and free;
With crackling red maple leaves under my feet,
I'll steal to the shore, in hopes we should meet.
And there will rush winds of a tidal storm
'Neath the towering mountain's windswept forms,
And atop Mont St-Alban, I'll whisper my name
For the glowry of the dawn, its short-lived fame.
To be distant from home on a sigmoidal road,
Spiralling through canyons and forests unmoved,
Gazing at the glare which glistens on the sea,
And the crick beside the road, like cinnamon tea.
At Anse-Aux Sauvages, my feet become weak
As I lumber down a trail, blistered and bleak
Soothed by amazement with no words to say,
I round the bold cliffs beside Cap-Gaspe.
And from the lighthouse I saw, frozen in time,
A sight which cannot be captured in rhyme
This clumsy capitulation of words and expressions
Jumbled together in a half-shrewd confession.
'Twas a colossal whale which breached by the cape,
Silhoutted by the sun, it barely took shape;
It unleashed its tail which smacked on a wave,
The droplets of water scattered and laved.
From out of its blowhole, it offered a fanfare
It discharged a deluge which sprinkled the air,
Then it disappeared cautiously, immersed by the sea,
Waggishly prowling, content and carefree.
Through the icy chambers of an abysmal world,
Where the tide whisks away in an unbridled swirl,
Where the mercy of the sea is all that is lord,
From the depths of the Shatskiys to an Acadian shore.
For all that I saw and for all that it meant,
These words are quite feeble and unconversant,
Because nothing in verse could recapture the elan
Which consumed me as I wandered through the great Forillon.