[Curator’s Note: Niagara Twice Seen is a long, complexly formatted poem. The prelude is reproduced on the site, with the actual text embedded from a digital copy found on the HathiTrust website.]
Courtesy of Library of Congress
…………………….I. PRELUDE
Once again, ha! these eyes behold
thee, Niagara, young as of old:
the thunderous uproar, the driving spray,
more, ever more, for ever and aye.
Ripple and whirl, pearl-bubble and flake,
enwreathe, unfurl, make, break, remake,
and over the brink flash as they leap,
ere link in link they sweep to the deep.
Green glistery walls, gay rapids that comb,
lacy spume-falls, swift geysers of foam—
and, riding the mist, a beryl span,
rose-amethyst, sun-protean!
*
O ages old, yet unbegun,
O manifold, yet ever one.
thou seemest the same all-glorious,
but we who came—Ah, knowest thou us,
who came to thee as lovers gay
in jubilee of holiday?
Alone, forlorn, I behold thee again,
who laughest to scorn generations of men;
and I yearn for the tide of folly and cheer:
a world that is wide, a heaven that is near;
unthinking delight, improvident faith
that feareth no plight, and endureth no scath!
*
Speak, when do we live? —When, blind to the skies,
self-contemplative we philosophize?
Or, piously drone tried formulæ
to save us alone through eternity?
Or rather, when (high spirits in glee
reckless again of “thee” and of “me”)
the water’s rout to the gaping abysm
is our battle shout, and its spray our chrism?
When its faith august in the blood of us boils,
that we will what we must—herculean toils,—
for, behold, we can the thing that we will,
though the fair hope of man elude us still?
From afar, from afar we have come, and we go
to some unknown star that we ask not to know;
hurtling arrive in a serried host,
with the fury alive of the Holy Ghost,
to hallow, and purge, and perish! Ah, who
shall hinder the surge of the deeds to do?
*
Alas, alas, for such folly of youth!
the years—they pass, till we blink at the truth.
No battle is won. Old ills remain.
No deed can be done—for at length we are sane!
So, we prate of the slow vain cycles of time,
irremediable woe, unavoidable crime,
the treadmill round, dull patience and thrift.
The secret once found? the lost glimpse through the rift?
If a moment we snatch from the nightmare, and dare
the lift of the latch and in vacancy stare,—
we sigh for the gift to some one—not us—
who the burden shall lift opprobrious!
For who hopes—he errs: we are sane, and we walk
slow pall-bearers in solemn, hushed talk
acquiescent, no goal of wisdom ahead;
in doubt of the soul, tho’ of death no dread;
wise forgetters of God, we trudge without shame,
mystery-shod, to no challenging aim!
*
Ha, what here am I who meditate?
and self- pitying sigh at human fate?
The stalwart strife—no feint or deceit—
foiled onslaught on life, defiant retreat,
the rally, the charge, the rout of the foe,
the dwelling at large, and the generous glow,—
be these not worth brief tenure of breath
from adventurous birth to victorious death?
So, once again, ha! these eyes do behold
thee, Niagara, young as of old;
and riding the roar a sunbow’s span:—
thy word evermore to the spirit of man!
Source: William Norman Guthrie. Niagara Twice Seen and Other Verse. Sewanee, Tennessee: The University Press of Sewanee; Cincinnati, Ohio: The Robert Clarke Company, 1910.
Review of “Niagara Twice Seen and Other Verse” from the Sewanee Review, vol 19, no. 1 (January 1911):
Niagara Twice Seen and Other Verse. By William Norman Guthrie. The University Press of Sewanee Tennessee and The Robert Clarke Company of Cincinnati.
A little volume of verse admirable in typography, and in content characterized by the same spirit of bewildering impetuosity that marks the great cataract itself.
Classic style of rhyming couplets. Sentimental.