A New Hymn, To Our Dear Old Niagara by Chester E. Pond

(As we approach it the fifth time.)

Roar on, roar on thou king of roaring waters —
Pour on, pour on thou queen of pouring waters —
Such heavy thunders in thy roarings !
Such endless wonders in thy pourings !

( As we walk over the long iron bridge to Goat Island.)

Leap on, leap on thou king of leaping waters —
Sweep on, sweep on thou queen of sweeping waters —
Such mighty tossings in thy leapings !
Such sightly glossings in thy sweepings !

( As we rest among the rocks and trees on the Three Sister
Islands.)

Sound on, sound on thou king of sounding waters —
Bound on, bound on thou queen of bounding waters-
Such soothing sweetness in thy soundings !
Such wooing neatness in thy boundings !

( As we study the contending rapids along the west side of Goat Island.)

Drive on, drive on thou king of driving waters —
Strive on, strive on thou queen of striving waters —
Such royal turnings in thy drivings !
Such loyal yearnings in thy strivings !

( As we stand on the smooth foundation rocks of
the Old Tower, at the verge of the great Horseshoe Fall.)

Plunge on, plunge on thou king of plunging waters —
Lunge on, lunge on thou queen of lunging waters —
Such ponderous slowness in thy plungings !
Such wonderous boldness in thy lungings !

( As we look down from the grassy verge of Luna Island.)

Wend on, wend on thou king of wending waters —
Blend on, blend on thou queen of blending waters —
Such winding chasms in thy wendings !
Such shining fathoms in thy blendings !

( As we sit on the rocks of the Canadian Shore in a sunny day.)

Beam on, beam on thou king of beaming waters —
Stream on, stream on thou queen of streaming waters —
Such showers of brightness in thy beamings !
Such towers of whiteness in thy streamings !

( As we approach Prospect Point in the American Park.)

Jar on, jar on thou king of jarring waters —
Mar on, mar on thou queen of marring waters —
Such rumbling deepness in thy jarrings !
Such humbling steepness in thy marrings !

( As we look over the trembling wall at Prospect Point.)

Pound on, pound on thou king of pounding waters —
Mound on, mound on thou queen of mounding waters—
Such anvil chorals in thy poundings !
Such grand memorials in thy moundings !

( As we enter the Cave of the Winds on Goat Island.)

Crash on, crash on thou king of crashing waters —
Dash on, dash on thou queen of dashing waters —
Such tangled echoes in thy crashings !
Such spangled haloes in thy dashings !

( As we linger on the quivering wire bridge, one
hundred and ninety feet above the purified river below.)

Roam on, roam on thou king of roaming waters —
Foam on, foam on thou queen of foaming waters —
Such playful rollings in thy roamings !
Such graceful scrollings in thy foamings !

( As we sit quietly on the beautiful river banks, about
one mile below the Falls on the American side.)

Move on, move on thou king of moving waters —
Groove on, groove on thou queen of grooving waters —
Such awful grandeur in thy movings !
Such walls of splendor in thy groovings !

( As we view the Whirlpool Rapids from below the elevator.)

Go on, go on thou king of going waters —
Flow on, flow on thou queen of flowing waters —
Such piling billows in thy goings !
Such smiling pillows in thy flowings !

(As we stroll along the steep banks of the Whirlpool, toward a large
overhanging pine, that stands three hundred and fifty feet above the water.)

Whirl on, whirl on thou king of whirling waters —
Swirl on, swirl on thou queen of swirling waters —
Such peerless surgings in thy whirlings !
Such fearless mergings in thy swirlings !

Seethe on, seethe on thou king of seething waters —
Wreathe on, wreathe on thou queen of wreathing waters —
Such boiling acres in thy seethings !
Such coiling breakers in thy wreathings !

(As we sit on the rocks with our feet at the waters’
edge of the Whirlpool Outlet.)

Rush on, rush on thou king of rushing waters —
Blush on, blush on thou queen of blushing waters —
Such matchless gradings in thy rushings !
Such rapturous shadings in thy blushings !

( Our parting reflections. )

Chime on, chime on thou king of chiming waters —
Rhyme on, rhyme on thou queen of rhyming waters —
Such holy pleasures in thy chimings !
Such lowly measures in thy rhymings !

Chide on, chide on thou king of chiding waters —
Glide on, glide on thou queen of gliding waters —
Such timely warnings in thy chidings !
Such fine adornings in thy glidings !

Fall on, fall on thou king of falling waters —
Call on, call on thou queen of calling waters —
Such massive speedings in thy fallings !
Such passive pleadings in thy callings !

Praise on, praise on thou king of praising waters —
Haze on, haze on thou queen of hazing waters —
Such plain old stories in thy praisings !
Such rain-bow glories in thy hazings !

Farewell, farewell thou king of preaching waters —
Farewell, farewell thou queen of teaching waters —
Such awe Divine in all thy preachings.
No words of mine can voice thy teachings.

Source: Chester E. Pond. The Falls of Niagara Our School of Sublimity. Topeka, Kansas, 1888. Cover title: The Sublime Niagara of Our World.

N.B. This poem comes after a series of lessons by Pond about Niagara Falls, as “Thoughtful persons visit the Falls not so much for temporary pleasure as for permanent soul culture. Not simply to be able to say, “I have seen the great Niagara,” but to become better acquainted with Niagara’s great Creator.

View these lessons on Hathi Trust:

Klondike Hotel by Glenn Bridenbaker

Warning: nudity, drug, and alcohol use

The small railway hotel and tavern near the Rainbow Bridge of Niagara Falls, Ontario at Bridge St. and Erie St. was named seven times during its 125-year history.

For decades, the hotel was known for basic rooms, meals, stabling horses, and postal delivery.

Since its inception, the building had been called the Suspension Bridge (1853), the Waverly (1880s-90s), the Arlington (mid-1890s), the New Arlington (mid-1930s) the Erie Hotel and the Avon House (1950s), and, finally, the hotel was named the Klondike Hotel in 1960.

On the rough side of town, it became well known that, for regular, law-abiding folk, just going there was risky.

Over the years, there were constant law enforcement interventions about alcohol, drug, health, solicitation, strip club, and vice regulations.

There were continuous police citations for a myriad of recidivist by-law and civil infractions and criminal code violations.

Lawlessness prevailed, and the characters around the scene acted with impunity;

The Klondike had become a well-known bane to the civilized community.

One day, while I was researching the interesting landowner lineage of the plot at Sam’s Montrose Hotel/Motel at Montrose and Lyons Creek roads in Niagara Falls (my research paper found at Niagara Falls Museum in the Thompson/Thomson files collection),

I was in a public telephone booth calling the hotel for deed information, and I became a part of a peculiar telephone call misconnection.

I was confusedly speaking with a confused woman who was also telephoning Sam’s Montrose. I asked her name. She said her name was Cinnamon. Dare I say that I don’t know how she spelled her name.

Curious, I asked her where she was calling from. She replied, “the Klondike.” She added that she was working there. Intrigued, I felt a song coming on. I asked if I could meet her at the Klondike to talk person-to-person for ten to fifteen minutes, so I could take some notes. Honestly, that was my aim.

I went down to the Klondike to chat with this muse. As I walked through the door, facing me — three feet in front of me, on a raised runway stage — there was a full-frontal nude exotic dancer called Bambi. She was gyrating to Stevie Wonder’s major hit “Sir Duke.” As I stood before her, she opened her arms wide and shimmied. I heard the blasting lyrics, “You can feel it all over, you can feel it all over, you can feel it all over.” Believe me, I could feel it all over. The small lobby’s barroom was overcrowded, and marijuana and drunkenness were apparent. Bedlam reigned everywhere.

I briefly spoke with Cinnamon; she was so completely unimpressive that I took no notes. There was no song arising from this occasion. I quickly left, sensing the high tension in the thick, smoky air.

Everything about the Klondike festered until the hotel met its final fate.

Thank goodness no one was injured, but the building sustained a dynamite explosion in 1978.

One wonders why, over time, the police investigator

Never caught the perpetrator.

Rumors were that police facilitated the deed. The person(s) involved — never found.

Finally, in 1980, the officially condemned, unsafe building was demolished to the ground.

The land where The Klondike once stood is presently part of the Niagara Falls Ontario Bus Terminal site.

Today, word on the street is that, in the shadow of the Klondike area’s history, it’s not a neighborhood to walk through in the dim light of night.

Source: The author, 2026

Author’s note:

The poem “Klondike Hotel,” a Niagara Falls atypical rhyming piece is one of five ̶ what I call ‘rambling poems’ ̶ comprising the unpublished work Rambling Reminiscences.

Glenn Bridenbaker:
Happily married to beautiful and wise muse wife Cheryl since 1967. Two brilliant sons, a gorgeous daughter. Two glorious granddaughters, an excellent grandson. Ontario residences: Toronto, Manitoulin Island, Wikwemikong Unceded Indigenous Reserve, Niagara Falls, and Ridgeway. Bibliophile. Musician. Nonprofessional writer. Amateur oil and watercolor painting. Novice Oriental Brush Painting. Art collector. Musical instruments and recorded music collector. Numismatist and philatelist. Dog and cat owner. Home vegetable, flower, and landscape gardener. Birdwatcher. Astronomy and space aficionado. Meaningful values include: know thyself, family, health, common sense, truth, logic, integrity, sharing, creativity, curiosity, quality, arts appreciation, and humor. Two years graduate student of Marshall McLuhan at the Centre for Culture and Technology.

Fury or Beauty by Ken Gierke

The attached photo shows three generations (my grandfather, my father, and me), taken on Luna Island at Niagara Falls, in 1953. I made countless visits to the falls as a child and continued to do so as an adult. Now living in Missouri, a visit to see the falls (both sides) is a part of every trip back to New York.

Understanding of both
Power and majesty
Seeds planted early
In the arms of grandparents
Held close by parents
Three generations
Photos as testament
In black and white
Niagara’s precipice, water churning
Roiling, yet beautiful
Mere feet from such splendor
This infant’s first opportunity
Witness to the glory of these falls
Repeated again and again
Through childhood and beyond
Hundreds of times, never once
Disappointed, always in awe
Even over seven decades
Often, camera in hand
Endeavoring to capture
Beauty first encountered
As an infant

Source: The author, 2026. Also published on Ken Gierke’s website

Watch Ken Gierke perform Fury or Beauty

This is my response to Day Two (of National / Global Poetry Writing Month 2026), the prompt at NaPoWriMo.net in which we’re asked to write “your own poem in which you recount a childhood memory. Try to incorporate a sense of how that experience indicated to you, even then, something about the person you’d grow up to be.”

Ken Gierke was born and raised in Western New York and, since moving to Missouri in 2012, has
missed Niagara Falls the most. He was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has been featured
online and in numerous print anthologies. His four poetry collections from Spartan Press, Glass Awash
(1922), Heron Spirit (2024), Random Riffs (2025), and The Long Haul (2026), are available on
Amazon. More of his poetry can be found at https://rivrvlogr.com/.

Gorgeous by Ken Gierke

Consider the river that cares not
what man thinks of it, churning
over obstacles that will not impede it
in a gorgeous canyon, miles from
a roaring cataract yet filled with the sound
of a rapid staccato best heard at the water’s edge,
that edge approached with peril for it cares not
what safety one desires when near, its own safety
never at stake, raging as it does at the disservice
served upon it, the waters it carries never truly clean,
yet powerless, despite its power, to change that course.

Now walk the trails that lie beside it, trails
that care not whether they are trod by soled feet
or the pads of wildlife content to share
with those who understand the fragile nature
of their home, this pocket of green. Marvel
at the escarpment that once was the falls
as the river wore at its limestone foundation
in its inexorable march to the current home
of those falls. Move briefly through shadow
between boulders larger than a house,
cleaved from the side of the wall towering
above you, as you wind your way to the river.

Watch a heron pull a fish from the water as you sit
on the rocks at the river’s edge, then gaze
at the roiling water beside you, sun glinting
from the foam of the rapids. Follow that light
to see the sun approach the crest of the gorge,
all the while taking in the green that surrounds you,
green that would not be had it not been preserved
by those who understand its fragile nature.

Source: The author, 2026. First published 2021 at Earthweal

This poem was inspired by walks in the gorge at Niagara Glen. The attached photo of a great blue
heron was taken there.

Watch Ken Gierke perform Gorgeous

About Gorgeous:

This poem is my response to earthweal weekly challenge: Sanctuary, a challenge now closed, so I’m sharing it with earthweal open link weekend #71.

The Niagara River, the strait of water between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, carries all of the water of the upper Great Lakes. Much of the thirty-six mile length of the river was lined with industry, including within the gorge below Niagara Falls. The majority of that industry is gone, with the few remaining on the US side in the stretch north of Buffalo. While stricter regulations and ambitious cleanup campaigns, from the late twentieth century onward, reversed much of the degradation of the lakes during the industrial era, toxic sediments still exist and agricultural runoff remains a serious problem. The Canadian side of the Niagara River is a true parkway, maintained by Niagara Parks of Ontario. Beyond the falls, from the whirlpool to the end of the gorge is Niagara Glen, where a stairway descends the gorge wall to join four miles of trails that lead to the river’s edge as they wind through a Carolinian forest. When I lived in New York, I often crossed into Canada at Niagara Falls, just to walk those trails. The rapids within the gorge range from Class III to Class V.

The Music of Niagara in 1881 as Described by Eugene Thayer in Scribner’s Monthly by Kimiko Hahn

Listen to Kimiko Hahn perform The Music of Niagara in 1881 as Described by Eugene Thayer in Scribner’s Monthly

What did I hear? The roar of Niagara Falls?
Niagara Gives a tone and not a roar!
Under the Horseshoe, in its misty halls—
What did I hear? Not the roar of Niagara Falls!
The sound is neither noise nor squall—
one’s organs are an organ; the shower, the chords.
What a choir under Niagara Falls!
Niagara waters sing! Only a beast roars!

Source: Kimiko Hahn

Kimiko Hahn, New York State Poet Laureate, wrote and performed this poem for the Niagara Falls Poetry Project’s 25th Anniversary, where it was featured at the April 9, 2026 event launching the Poetry Contest. Click here for information about the contest and the event.

About Kimiko Hahn

Read the article The Music of Niagara by Eugene Thayer on Hathi Trust

Category: Niagara Falls Poems

A New Hymn, To Our Dear Old Niagara by Chester E. Pond

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Klondike Hotel by Glenn Bridenbaker

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Fury or Beauty by Ken Gierke

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Gorgeous by Ken Gierke

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The Music of Niagara in 1881 as Described by Eugene Thayer in Scribner’s Monthly by Kimiko Hahn

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