Category: Niagara Falls Poems

Niagara Falls by Kathryn Munro

Kathryn Munro
Kathryn Munro
On thundering feet you take the dread abyss,
      Shaking the stolid earth around, below,
      Where puny mortals gaze but may not know
The cosmic surge of elemental bliss,
The soaring passion of the lethal kiss
      That hides within your swift arterial flow.
      Most prodigal of waters, to bestow
So rich inheritance on man as this.
Niagara, the mighty, rainbow-spanned,
      Majestic, terrible your potency!
What aeons since He cupped you in His hand
      Who gave His space its wheeling argosy,
And bade you ride this rampart of our land
      Companionless, alone, eternally!

Source: V.B. Rhodenizer, (ed.) Canadian Poetry Magazine vol. 22, no. 3, Spring 1959.

About Kathryn Munro (married name Kathryn Munro Tupper)

Niagara by Charles Pelham Mulvany

(From the French of Louis-Honoré Fréchette) 

mulvany
Louis-Honoré Fréchette

Majestic moves the mighty stream and slow,
Till from that false calm’s semblance, suddenly,
Wild and with echoes shaking earth and sky,
The huge tide plunges in the abyss below,
— It is the cataract! from whose thunderous ire
The wild birds flee in terror far away —
From that dread gulf when with her scarf of fire
The rainbow sits above the torrent’s sway!
Earth quakes, for sudden that vast arching dome
Of green is changed to hills of snow-white foam,
That seethe and boil and bound in tameless pride.
Yet this Thy work, O God, Thy law fulfils,
And while it shakes the everlasting hills,
It spares the straw that floats upon its tide.

Source: This poem by Mulvany was published in Rose-Belford’s Canadian Monthly and National Review, July 1881, vol. 7, no. 1. Toronto: Rose-Belford Publishing Co., 1881. p. 26

Also in the anthology Niagara Mornings by Andrew C. Porteus, 2016.

See the original French language version of Fréchette’s poem here.

Read a biography of Charles Pelham Mulvany

 

World Wonder by Betty J. Beam

(a children’s poem)

Cataracts cascading
Sun shining
Mist mounting
Rainbows arching

Rapids roaring
Gulls soaring
Blossoms blooming
People peering

Picture making
Breath taking
World wonder
Niagara Falls

Source: The author, 2001

Friday Fireworks by Betty Beam

friday fireworks
(a children’s poem)

friday fireworks
Fireworks over Niagara Falls

Each Friday night, fireworks
Light the Falls and the park,
All through the summer months,
After ten, when it’s dark.

As we weave through the crowd
And descend on Clifton Hill,
The traffic is noisy,
Tourists’ voices are shrill.

We stop at the corner
Till the light turns from red;
Hike past the lily pond,
Skirt a long flower bed.

A battery of blasts,
An explosion of stars,
Greet the thrilling throng
Mid massed buses and cars.

There are loud OH!s and AH!s —
Children’s cries of delight;
As huge flaming flowers,
Bloom above in the night.

Gold and silver sparks shoot —
Reds… blues… dart at angles,
Then shower the gorge with
A riot of spangles.

One last bang!  The show ends!
There’s applause, a wild cheer,
Then a child’s voice exclaims,
The best fireworks this year!

Source: The author, 2002.

Niagara by Henry Howard Brownell

Henry Howard Brownell
Henry Howard Brownell

Has aught like this descended, since the fountains
    Of the Great Deep broke up, in cataracts hurled
And climbing lofty hills, eternal mountains,
    Poured wave on wave above a buried world?

Yon tides are raging, as when storms have striven,
    And the vexed seas, awaking from their sleep,
Are rough with foam, and Neptune’s flocks are driven
    In myriads o’er the green and azure deep.

Ere yet they fall, mark (where that mighty current
    Comes like an army from its mountain home)
How fiercely yon wild steeds amid the torrent,
    With their dark flanks, and manes and crests of foam,

Speed to their doom – yet in the awful centre,
    Where the wild waves rush madliest to the steep,
Just ere that white unfathomed gulf they enter,
    Rear back in horror from the headlong leap;
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