"Semiahmoo Spit"

Semiahmoo Spit

One long, low, narrow strip of glistening sands

            Flung out into the Georgian Gulf; one wide,

            Blue sweep of sunlit waves on every side.

Around it reach the hills, like emerald bands,

And farther, higher, more majestic, stands

            Mount Baker, chaste and white―the ocean’s bride.

            With noiseless feet the pearl-topped waters glide,

Pushing each other up the black tide-lands;

Here wild, sweet roses, like an amethyst cloud,

            Make pink the air and scent the languorous breeze

            That wantons over these far western seas;

And when the sun drops downward, flaming, proud,

            This stretch of water, petaled fold on fold,

            Seems one great crimson poppy, fleck’d with gold.

"Semiahmoo Spit" as it appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).