Poetry of and about Niagara Falls & the Niagara River – the waterfalls, the city, the history, the stunters, and everything else Niagara
Author: Andrew Porteus
Andrew Porteus is a retired librarian who started the Niagara Falls Poetry Project in 1998 in order to gather in one place the hundreds of poems that exist about Niagara Falls. Andrew returned to Brock University to get a Master of Art degree based on the website
I
NIAGARA, how charms thy name
Resounding from thy high walled sheer!
How sweet thy water's far acclaim
That bursts upon my pricking ear!
How beams my eye with kindling flame
As to thy presence I draw near,
Where beautied grandure's falling swell
Weaves still time's awful, mystic spell!
I gaze at thee from nearest shore,
Close by the impending brink,
In wonder at thy fearful pour
Of waters, til, amazèd more
Than I can tell or think,
I only see thy mist's fine shower
That wafts upon these walls,
And vision dim that mighty Power,
The Great Spirit of the Falls.
II
But lo ! up stream, in fitful dream,
The rolling, rumbling rapids roar,
And toss and tilt and turn and teem,
And gurgle in their cascades' gleam
From isle to isle and isle to shore;
And oft repeat the dazzling feat,
Display their leaping wonders more,
Rush round the rocks with flaring locks,
Lead as bellweathers do their flocks,
While through their tree-trimmed way they pour,
These bounding waters, fleet, more fleet,
To gather in one onward rush
Adown their troubled, rocky bed,
And struggle, straggle, gurgle, gush,
To follow where their leaders led;
But panting now for breath,
They stagger to the edge
Of overhanging ledge,
Fearing the plunge beneath;
When forth in foam their fellows come,
Cheering and jeering the faltering and fearing,
Till onto the precipice they rush with a roar,
Exulting and leaping, as comrades before;
Yet staring, stumbling, crashing, crumbling,
As host with host o'erpowering,
Each glistening wight of air commingled,
They fall in gulf devouring;
Or, flaring, flashing, darting, dashing,
To break as gleaming snow,
While splitting, splashing, gnawing, gnashing
Upon the rocks below;
Whence o'er the heights their spirits towering,
Sweeping, swaying, rising, lowering,
Rejoin the ceaseless flow,
That with recurring, falling shock,
Born on the wind's bluff blast,
Wears e'er amain the shelving rock,
And undermines aghast.
There as by mighty hand,
A cavern forms, carved by the storms
Of vexed spray's pelting wave;
And in that rocky cave
Rough columns stand with altar grand;
While fittingly conforms
The spray-worn dome and bowlder pave,
Round which reëcho e'er a stave
Of wailing wind's weird band;
And there before the cavern door,
Attended with intoning roar,
E'er falls the Bridal Veil
And sweeps the filmy rail,
Which now through Bridal Hall are fanned,
Now screen that Wind's Cave from the land.
Continue reading "Niagara by Arthur William Fisher"→
The left hand pocket of my old blue denim jeans
Hold coins from three nations
Cents dimes and pennies
Laughter hides the sheer glimpse
Of a trail echoed in geography of Kent
Even plain fields belie the modern journey
Syndicated music follows in our wake
Announcing our arrival in neon lit cascades
Lived in motels stale facades heavy with its own faded thirst
A living promise of being the first
The left hand pocket of my old blue denim jeans
Hold coins from three nations
Cents dimes and pennies
Late arrivals barred from splendid thoughts
Neon men let you walk to the late night store
Full of unsleepable teens
Packaged dreams enclosed in plastic wraps
Music louder beyond the hands of an older leather jacket
Sleep will bring the dawn
Then wake and follow the throngs on the same worn lawn
Glorious morning filled with youth watching
In awe and disbelief nature in splendour charging
Smooth aged mist nurturing rocks
Dressed each day in bright new frocks
Freedom to roam without locks
Nature dressed as always in new clothes
Even in your veil your beauty shows
The left hand pocket of my old blue denim jeans
Hold coins from three nations
Cents dimes and pennies
Sir Gordon holds the frontier line — all honour to his name —
Save only the stronghold to the south, near by Niagara’s stream —
Fort Erie of dismal remembrance, far up from the cataract,
Which the foe has strengthened all anew, since last it was attacked;
And as he thinks of the laurels won, on the field of Lundy’s Lane,
He fain would have the place re-ta’en, ere ends the year’s campaign.
That fort had fallen, the invader’s prize, a month or so before,
An easy prey to General Brown withstanding Britain’s power;
But amplified and girt around, as a citadel may be
A menace it stands to Drummond’s braves, who would the country free;
And its demilunes and bastioned wall, its batteries all in train,
Are his to seize in England’s name, her prowess to sustain.
And still, of a summer’s day, the book lies open to our hand,
As we linger amid the ruins, its tales to understand.
In the light and shade of the landscape, dotted o’er with homestead cheer,
We still may trace how the besiegers came to test the arts of war.
From the lintel-stone of some ruined keep, we may dream of the bloodstained din,
In the open field or round the walls, where mastery sought to win.
Who says the rival nations think to end their long-drawn feud?
Has any one heard in the ravelin such tiding there intrude?
Nay, rather, Sir Gordon is on his way, past the cataract’s echoing roar,
Awaking the hamlets, one by one, with nought but the tidings of war,
See, yonder, is where his army lay, beyond gun-range of the fort,
Prepared to dare every danger that lurked in its garrisoned court!
And the August sunsets come and go, like fringes of tragedy,
With bastion responding to battery, to the throbbing of woodland and lea;
While Sir Gordon is ever evolving his plans, to compass the place about,
In a nearer approach to its front and rear, from ravelin to redoubt;
And when he learns of Dobbs’ success, he decrees a night attack,
With three of his trusty colonels, the assault in line to make.
’Tis Fisher commands the wing to the right:
’Tis Towson’s he seeks to beset;
And its twenty-four pounder greets his advance,
From its ominous parapet.
Will he dare these throbs of disaster?
Will he reach the edge of the lake,
Where under or over the palisades,
An inner attack he may make?
Yea, his courage will dare, whate’er the despair,
All blasts from that cavern of wrath,
As he keeps hovering near, his comrades to cheer,
Amid the turmoil of death. Continue reading “The Siege of Fort Erie by J.M. Harper”→
Below Table Rock, Drawn from nature for the Proprietor Hermann J. Meyer. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
I HEAR flood voices in thy cavern halls,
Deep unto deep there uttereth grave speech;
The sounds of torrent minstrelsy here reach
To heaven from the profound within thy walls;
Upon my deafened ear in terror falls,
Thy roar, as of some dread volcano’s breach,
Or ocean storm-waves hurled upon the beach!
Earth trembleth at thy passing mighty flood!
From the unfathomed chambers of the deep,
These voices of thy many waters keep,
In thunder-tones and grand majestic mood,
One everlasting anthem praising God!
Thy fearful pathway leads thee o’er a steep,
Which thou thyself alone dost dare to leap!
I feel to worship now — here from this seat,
High o’er the beetling cliffs above the brink
Of thy abyss, I wonder, gaze, and think : —
How restless is thy surge beneath my feet!
For ever rolling rushing on to meet
Old Ocean’s boundless depths, for aye to sink
Deep in oblivion, whence we mortals shrink!
Heaven archeth o’er thy gates, great deluge-born!
With bow that sprang from world-submerging waves:
Below its circling reach thy maddened flood here raves;
And chronicles on walls of adamant deep worn,
The years that have been since thy birth-day morn!
For ever lost the bark that rashly braves
The war of adverse waters — no arm saves!
Proud kings and purpled potentates of earth,
With trophies borne in march from battle-plain,
Where sleep the glorious dead in havoc slain,
Sound clarion loud and seek the distant hearth,
Through arch-triumphal reared at place of birth;
How mean are they beside my monarch train,
Thy going forth to join the Stormy Main!
Source: Swickhamer, Conrad, ed. United States Democratic Review. New Series, vol. 17, no. 6, December 1858. p. 475-476.
Roar, raging torrent! and thou, mighty river,
Pour thy white foam on the valley below;
Frown, ye dark mountains! and shadow for ever
The deep rocky bed where the wild rapids flow.
The green sunny glade, and the smooth flowing fountain,
Brighten the home of the coward and slave;
The flood and the forest, the rock and the mountain,
Rear on their bosoms the free and the brave.
II.
Nurslings of nature, I mark your bold bearing,
Pride in each aspect and strength in each form,
Hearts of warm impulse, and souls of high daring,
Born in the battle and rear’d in the storm.
The red levin flash and the thunder’s dread rattle,
The rock-riven wave and the war trumpet’s breath,
The din of the tempest, the yell of the battle,
Nerve your steeled bosoms to danger and death.
III.
High on the brow of the Alps’ snowy towers
The mountain Swiss measures his rock-breasted moors,
O’er his lone cottage the avalanche lowers,
Round its rude portal the spring-torrent pours.
Sweet is his sleep amid peril and danger,
Warm is his greeting to kindred and friends,
Open his hand to the poor and the stranger,
Stern on his foeman his sabre descends.
IV.
Lo! where the tempest the dark waters sunder
Slumbers the sailor boy, reckless and brave,
Warm’d by the lighting and lulled by the thunder,
Fann’d by the whirlwind and rock’d on the wave;
Wildly the winter wind howls round his pillow,
Cold on his bosom the spray showers fall;
Creaks the strained mast at the rush of the billow,
Peaceful he slumbers, regardless of all.
V.
Mark how the cheek of the warrior flushes,
As the battle drum beats and the war torches glare;
Like a blast of the north to the onset he rushes,
And his wide-waving falchion gleams brightly in air.
Around him the death-shot of foemen are flying,
At his feet friends and comrades are yielding their breath;
He strikes to the groans of the wounded and dying,
But the war cry he strikes with is, ‘conquest or death!’
VI.
Then pour thy broad wave like a flood from the heavens,
Each son that thou rearest, in the battle’s wild shock,
When the death-speaking note of the trumpet is given,
Will charge like thy torrent or stand like thy rock.
Let his roof be the cloud and the rock be his pillow,
Let him stride the rough mountain, or toss on the foam,
He will strike fast and well on the field or the billow,
In triumph and glory, for God and his home!
Source: Joseph Rodman Drake The Culprit Fay, and Other Poems, New York: George Dearborn, 1836
In his book Papers and proceedings of the Drake Memorial Celebration, May 29, 1915 : together with a bibliography of the writings of Dr. Joseph Rodman Drake by Victor Hugo Paltsits he mentions that a manuscript notebook dated 1817 and entitled Trifles in Rhyme written by Joseph Rodman Drake includes the poem Niagara.
In 1835, H. Clinch published the two-stanza poem Niagara which is almost identical to the first and last (6th) stanzas of this poem.
