Nature’s Wonder by Ruth Sullivan

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Niagara Falls
Photo by Edward Koorey on Unsplash

The falls of Niagara roll on, and on,
Tumbling and tossing, hither and yon,
Foaming and frothing over rocks, and shale,
Forever and ever, on its ancient trail.

Down through the rapids the water flows,
Twirling, and swirling as onward it goes,
Not a heed for anything on its way,
As it gains momentum, day after day.

What a story if water could tell!
All the happenings it knows so well,
Such beauty it leaves on a misty day,
When a rainbow appears on display.

Lights turned on the falls at night,
Illuminate a dazzling sight,
Tourists from far and wide see bliss,
The falls of Niagara, you must not miss.

Views in nature are a large feat.
Of the many you chance to meet
Come, see how the cataract enthralls.
Beautiful, beautiful Niagara Falls.


Source: Ely, Howard (ed.) The Best Poems and Poets of 2004. The International Library of Poetry, 2005

Ruth Sullivan was a long-time Niagara Falls resident.  Sullivan

 

Niagara Beautiful by Samuel R. Cristelli

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The Ice Bridge at Niagara Falls, February 5, 2007
Photo by Andrew Porteus

Fine sprays, colored rainbows,
Rushing waters, winter snows.
Majestically she roars her might,
Niagara, a truly beautiful sight!

Hark! Let us lend an ear
To rumbling sounds that are so near
Recognize her music with pride,
To Niagara! a drink we’ll imbibe!

Breathlessly we watch on a cold winter’s night
When NIagara waters are frozen tight
Ice bridges are formed on waters now ice,
Figurines are molded, does that not suffice?

The stage is set and sounds are slight,
Niagara is silenced by winter’s might.
A command performance soon we’ll see,
As Niagara prepares to break herself free!

With a mighty roar, she blasts her authority
Her fury is unleashed, she’s in her glory
Ice bridges are broken and skirting away
Niagara beautiful has had her say!

The rumbling sounds are heard once more
As Niagara boasts her strength galore!
All is beautiful-so serene
Beautiful Niagara, really supreme!


Source: Samuel R. Cristelli (Dec 5,1921 – Jul 18,1997). The date this poem was written is unknown. Cristelli, a WWII veteran, worked as an electrician and he wrote this poem for the electrical shop newsletter.  When he retired he worked as a supervisor with The Regional Municipality of Niagara at the Pollution Control Plant. The poem was provided by the author’s daughter, Shelley.

Read about the 1912 tragedy on the ice bridge that took 3 lives when it unexpectedly broke up

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The Battle of Queenston Heights by Francis Sparshott

 

 

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Brock and Sheaffe
Image from the St. Catharines Standard,
Oct. 10, 2012

The Yankees stood on Queenston Heights
in coats of modest grey
and Brock has brought his fencibles
to make them go away

Who is that sweating officer
waving a useless sword?
That’s General Sir Isaac Brock
who wants to be a Lord

God bless the British soldier
who wears a coat of red
it makes a splendid target
and so they shot him dead

They laughed to see the fencibles
run down the hill in fear
but Roger Sheaffe has scaled the Heights
and caught them in the rear

Who is this cool young officer
who shoots us through the heart?
That’s Major General Roger Sheaffe
who wants to be a Bart

Now all you bold Canadian girls
remember Queenston Heights
it’s thanks to such as Brock and Sheaffe
that you sleep safe at nights

Cool Sheaffe was made a Baronet
and back to England sent
but Brock still stands on Queenston Heights
upon his monument


Source: Francis Sparshott.  The Naming of the Beasts. Windsor, Ont.: Black Moss Press, 1979.

Originally published in Descant

About Francis Sparshott

Read the article The Hero of Queenston about the treatment of Sheaffe

Read about Isaac Brock

Read about Roger Sheaffe

D.M.R. Bentley briefly discusses this poem by Sparshott in his essay (now archived on the WayBack Machine) Monumental Tensions: the Commemoration of British Political and Military Heroes in Canada from his Mnemographia Canadensis, volume 1: Muse and Recall

Brock by Charles Sangster

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Brock’s Monument, Queenston Heights
from John Charles Dent’s The Last Forty Years: Canada Since the Union of 1841


October
 13th, 1859 *

One voice, one people, one in heart
……..And soul, and feeling, and desire !
……..Re-light the smouldering martial fire, 
……..Sound the mute trumpet, strike the lyre, 
……..The hero deed can not expire,
……………The dead still play their part.

Raise high the monumental stone !
……..A nation’s fealty is theirs,
……..And we are the rejoicing heirs,
……..The honored sons of sires whose cares 
……..We take upon us unawares,
……………As freely as our own.

We boast not of the victory,
……..But render homage, deep and just,
……..To his  to their  immortal dust,
……..Who proved so worthy of their trust 
……..No lofty pile nor sculptured bust
……………Can herald their degree.

No tongue need blazon forth their fame  
……..The cheers that stir the sacred hill
……..Are but mere promptings of the will
……..That conquered then, that conquers still ; 
……..And generations yet shall thrill
……………At Brock’s remembered name.

Some souls are the Hesperides
……..Heaven sends to guard the golden age,
……..Illuming the historic page
……..With records of their pilgrimage ;
……..True Martyr, Hero, Poet, Sage :
……………And he was one of these.

Each in his lofty sphere sublime
……..Sits crowned above the common throng,
……..Wrestling with some Pythonic wrong,
……..In prayer, in thunder, thought, or song ;
……..Briareus-limbed, they sweep along,
……………The Typhons of the time.

* The day of the inauguration of the new Monument on Queenston Heights.


Source: Charles Sangster. Hesperus, and Other Poems and Lyrics. Montreal: John Lovell, 1860.

Read about Charles Sangster

D.M.R. Bentley discusses this poem by Sangster in his essay (now archived on the WayBack Machine) Monumental Tensions: the Commemoration of British Political and Military Heroes in Canada from his Mnemographia Canadensis, volume 1: Muse and Recall

 

 

From Queenston Heights by Charles Sangster

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Crowd at the Base of Brock’s Monument,
ca. 1914
Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library


….
Eleven.    Welcome to the Sabbath bells ! 
A blessing and a welcome !    At this hour
One prays for me at home, two hundred miles
From where I lounge along the grassy knoll,
Far up upon this classic hill.    The air
Hath a delicious feeling, as it breathes
Its autumn breath upon me ; air so calm,
One cannot feel the beat of Nature’s pulse.
No, not a throb.    The heav’nly influences,
Hearing that maiden’s prayer, lean down and move
My being with their answerings of love.
The myriad-tinted leaves have gravely paused
To listen to the spheral whisperings —
The unvoiced harmonies that few can hear
Or feel, much less interpret faithfully ;
And the swift waters of the dizzy gorge,
Stunned with their recent plunge against the crags
That hide Niagara’s iris-circled feet,
And lashed to very madness as they wound
Their circling way past rocks and fretted banks,
Melt into calm in the blue lake beyond,
As starlight melts into the distant sea.

….Those ancient willows have a solemn droop ;
You scarce can see the dwelling they adorn :
Behind them rest the grain-denuded fields.
Here, to my left, an unpretending town ;
There, to my right, another ; like two friends,
Each thanking heaven for the Sabbath-pause,
And the brief respite from man’s curse of toil.
The church bells pealing now and then a note,
Swell the bless’d Pæan with their silver tongues.
The very tombstones yonder, near the church,
Look whiter for the eloquent Repose.
 
….A few short paces through the cedar trees,
Where the pert chipmunks chatter, and the birds
Select and melodize their sweetest notes,
And I have gained the level.    Toward the lake,
The cloudlike points of land are seen
Blending with old Ontario, and the gorge
Hurries its whirling current past the banks 
That glass their fair proportions in the stream.
 
….Here is the Monument.    Immortal Brock,
Whose ashes lie beneath it, not more still
Than is the plain to-day. What have we gained,
But a mere breath of fame, for all the blood
That flowed profusely on this stirring field ?
‘T is true, a Victory ; through which we still
Fling forth the meteor banner to the breeze,
And have a blood-sealed claim upon the soil.
‘T were better than Defeat, a thousand times.
And we have rightly learned to bless the name
Of the Old Land, whose courage won the day —
We, the descendants of her Victor-sires.
But dearer than a hundred victories,
With their swift agony, the earnest Calm,
That, like a Blessing from the lips of God,
Rests on the classic plain, o’er which my feet
Tread lightly, in remembrance of the dead—
My Brothers all, Vanquished and Victors both.
And yet my heart leaps up, poor human heart !
As I lean proudly, with a human pride,
Against this pillar to a great man’s name.
Yet I would rather earn that maiden’s prayer,
Than all the fame of the immortal dead.
 
….There may be furrows still upon the field,
Ploughed up with the wild hurricane of war
On that eventful day.    Here, certainly,
An angry missile grooved this honored rock.
Though nearly half a century has pass’d,
The fissure still is here, and here the rust
Left by the iron messenger of death,
As it sped forward like an angry fate,
Sending, perhaps, ten human souls to hell.
 
….There, there was pain. Here, where the wondrous skill
Of the mechanic, with this iron web
Has spanned the chasm, the pulse beats hopefully,
And thoughts of peace sit dove-like in the mind.
Heav’n bridge these people’s hearts, and make them one !


Source: Charles Sangster. The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay and Other Poems. Kingston, Ont.: J. Creighton & J. Duff, 1856

Read about Charles Sangster

D.M.R. Bentley discusses this poem by Sangster in his essay (now archived on the WayBack Machine) Monumental Tensions: the Commemoration of British Political and Military Heroes in Canada from his Mnemographia Canadensis, volume 1: Muse and Recall

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