Text of the Poem | That Morning By Ted Hughes | Eureka Study Aids

1. We came where the salmon were so many
2. So steady, so spaced, so far-aimed
3. On their inner map, England could add

4. Only the sooty twilight of South Yorkshire
5. Hung with the drumming drift of Lancasters
6. Till the world had seemed capsizing slowly.

7. Solemn to stand there in the pollen light
8. Waist-deep in wild salmon swaying massed
9. As from the hand of God. There the body

10. Separated, golden and imperishable,
11. From its doubting thought – a spirit-beacon
12. Lit by the power of the salmon

13. That came on, came on, and kept on coming
14. As if we flew slowly, their formations
15. Lifting us toward some dazzle of blessing

16. One wrong thought might darken. As if the fallen
17. World and salmon were over. As if these
18. Were the imperishable fish

19. That had let the world pass away –

20. There, in a mauve light of drifted lupins,
21. They hung in the cupped hands of mountains

22. Made of tingling atoms. It had happened.
23. Then for a sign that we were where we were
24. Two gold bears came down and swam like men

25. Beside us. And dived like children.
26. And stood in deep water as on a throne
27. Eating pierced salmon off their talons.

28. So we found the end of our journey.

29. So we stood, alive in the river of light,
30. Among the creatures of light, creatures of light.