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
Incessantly thy waters thus have rolled
Through the dim aeons of unmeasured Time,
While God was fashioning His work sublime,
Or ere His sulphurous forges could grow cold!
When Egypt loved Osiris and retold
His charmed birth from out Nilotic slime,
When Chaldea read the stars, and Homer's rhyme
Was yet undreamt -- Niagara thundered bold.
So night and day throughout coverging years
Hoarse voices rose above the hissing spray
Scaring the lonely Indian on the shore!
These bellowing chasms harbored nameless fears --
Demons and dragons in contorted play
Lashing the frightened waters evermore!
Source: Rev. James B. Dollard. Poems. Toronto: The Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada, 1910.
loretto
I look below; Niagara’s torrent white
Is eager hurrying to the dread abyss;
I hear its thunder as the waters hiss
Over the awful brink, to plunge from sight
In seething spray! Confusion at its height
Is pictured there; but even on convent walls
The radiant glow of even gently falls
And all is harmony and holy quiet!
Like some blest soul on Heaven that ever dreams,
Bending its chastened look beyond the skies,
Regardless of the tumults of the world;
So, crowned with peace this cloistered abbey seems,
And on its peerless heights serene doth rise,
While deep below the raging floods are hurled!
Source: Rev. James B. Dollard. Poems. Toronto: The Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada, 1910.
Also in the anthology Niagara Mornings by Andrew C. Porteus, 2016.
In old Niagara town, long aisles of ancient trees
Stand sentinel along the storied ways,
Tall, sturdy patriarchs of other days,
Whose busy leaves are ever whispering memories.
And one there was who walked beneath their arching shade:
True, gallant type of Christian gentleman,
He, faithful, passed the full, allotted span
Within this hoary town whose cause his own he made;
And always at his side there moved a shadowy throng:
Simcoe and Brock and noble Addison,
All who with axe and plough and sword and gun,
Laid firm its deep foundations that have lasted long,
All who, sojourning in this place, did love it well.
He was like to the Roman Livy, he
Who loved his town and ever strove to be
Worthy its great traditions and its annals tell.
So let his country keep his memory one pure sheen,
And bring him, there beside the ivied wall,
Beneath still other forest-veterans tall,
French whites and English roses, ‘twined with Maple green.
Source: E.J. Pratt, (ed). Canadian Poetry Magazine. vol. 6, no. 1, December 1941.
Biographical information on George ‘Fisher’ Davidson prepared by historian Arden Phair:
George ‘Fisher’ Davidson was born in Batavia, NY, October 19, 1912, the son of George Lee Davidson and Florence Irene Fisher. The family left the United States on February 27, 1918 and settled in Grantham Township where they took up farming. Fisher’s father died in October 1926 and his brother in February 1929. By March 1929, Fisher and his mother are living in Welland. After graduating from the University of Toronto in 1935, he returned to Welland where he was a teacher, remaining there until at least 1940. In 1947 he was in Hornepayne, Ontario, then is found in Toronto in 1948, residing there until at least 1961. In the 1950s, his employment in Toronto is listed as “customs.” Davidson apparently died in Hamilton, January 19, 1995, though no official record of the details of this event can as yet be located (either in Hamilton, Welland, or elsewhere).
George ‘Fisher Davidson, Class of ’35, University College Torontonensis
In high school, he was acknowledged as an accomplished orator, reaching the Ontario District semi-finals in 1929. Ten years later, he was playwright for “The Canal”, a production whose focus is on a Canal widow at the 1932 Official Opening of the waterway. Her story is told as she reflects upon the tragedies that led up to the day’s events. His original play was performed by members of the Anglican Young Peoples Association (A.Y.P.A.) of Trinity Anglican Church in Welland. In January 1939, the play was awarded The Lewis Cup as the best of six plays at the A.Y.P.A. Niagara District Drama Festival.
Davidson had poems and short stories published in a variety of journals and newspapers including the Canadian Historical Association Annual Report, Canadian Poetry Magazine, Canadian Forum, and The Globe/Globe & Mail. He was also a member of the Toronto branch of the Canadian Authors Association.
Fisher Davidson’s published works include: Two Sonnets for a Centenary (ca. 1939), Dominion and Other Poems: 1948), Principal Boy (1954), and Mists of Quebec (1960).
Thundering clouds
over the roar of a thousand nights
smashing water
spilling mist on ancient rocks.
Tremors beget the moving form
created to carry men in God’s direction
yet,
Sons of Adam, Listen!
Building the Tower of Babel
dumb in spirit
yet brilliant in designing
a god to themselves
In the midst of futile human endeavor
stands a mighty warrior,
an ancient ghost
“Onguirahra! Noss oossima!”
tall, courageous
believing in a power
greater than that
which was created
Sons of Adam, look!
On mighty rushing wings
He raises his spear
and with one fell swoop
brings down
the concrete rocks.
and the river rises up
to greet Him
moving faithfully forward
with the thundering power of the falls.
Peace is restored
and a tree planted by the river
reaches its roots out
and grows among men’s ashes.
while the warrior
rests beneath its shade.
And is refreshed
in the cool depths
of Onguirahra!
Edward, Prince of Wales & party photographed at Niagara Falls by Platt Babbitt, 1860.
Now wherefore trembles still the string
By lyric fingers crossed,
To Laura Secord‘s praise and fame,
When forty years are lost?
Nay, five and forty, one by one,
Have Borne her from the day
When, fired with patriotic zeal,
She trod her lonely way. Her hair is white, her step is slow,
Why kindles then her eye,
And rings her voice with music sweet
Of many a year gone by?
O know ye not proud Canada,
With joyful heart, enfolds
In fond embrace the royal boy
Whose line her fealty holds?
For him she spreads her choicest cheer,
And tells her happiest tale,
And leads him to her loveliest haunts,
That naught to please may fail.
And great art thou, O Chippawa,
Though small in neighbours‘ eyes,
When out Niagara‘s haze thou see‘st
A cavalcade arise;
And in its midst the royal boy
Who, smiling, comes to see
An ancient dame whose ancient fame
Shines in our history.
He takes the thin and faded hand,
He seats him at her side,
Of all that gay and noble band
That moment well the pride.
To him the aged Secord tells,
With many a fervid glow,
How, by her means, Fitzgibbon struck
His great historic blow.
Nor deem it ye, as many do,
A weak and idle thing
That at that moment Laura loved
The praises of a king;
And dwelt on his approving smile,
And kissed his royal hand,
Who represented, and should wield,
The sceptre of our land;
For where should greatness fire her torch
If not at greatness‘ shrine?
And whence should approbation come
Did not the gods incline?
Source: McCabe, Kevin, ed. The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines, Ont. : Blarney Stone Books, 1999.
Originally published in T.H. Rand, ed. A Treasury of Canadian Verse. 1900.
