“It is announced that Oscar Wilde was also disappointed with Niagara”
Oscar Wilde photographed by Napoleon Sarony, 1882. Courtesy of Library of Congress
Universe, you are a failure, ‡‡You’re one masterly mistake;
Firmamental glories, pale your ‡‡Fires, and played-out old earth, quake.
You may teem with hidden treasure, ‡‡But we won’t be reconciled,
Since you seem to take a pleasure ‡‡In disappointing Wilde.
In the lake, as in the ocean, ‡‡Torrents’ rush, and waves that roll,
Failing to impart emotion ‡‡To his fine fastidious soul;
You may just as well, Dame Nater, ‡‡Shut up shop, to draw it mild,
As let cataract and crater ‡‡Go disappointing Wilde.
Or, perhaps you’d best endeavour ‡‡To improve your old design,
Make catastrophes more clever, ‡‡And phenomena more fine.
Dye Niagara rose-madder, ‡‡Have the wide Atlantic biled:
Then he may feel somewhat gladder, ‡‡The disappointed Wilde.
When they meet his pensive gaze, oh, ‡‡Take a ‘cute scene-painter’s hints,
Add ten leagues to Chimborazo, ‡‡To the rainbow ten new tints;
Let Mount Etna vomit lava ‡‡With a monster saucepan tiled,
So he will but murmur, Brava!” ‡‡The disappointed Wilde.
Then you might transpose each season, ‡‡Make the roses oust the snows,
Give the Tory party reason, ‡‡And the Irish one repose;
But, perhaps, the multiplying ‡‡Of the dollar-heap he’s piled,
Would be best for satisfying, ‡‡Not disappointing, Wilde.
Originally published in Fun magazine, March 8, 1882, in response to Wilde’s widely quoted comment that “Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life” – quoted in Carr, Jamie M. Niagaras of Ink: Famous Writers at the Falls. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2020. p. 50.
Blondin Crossing Niagara Falls on a Tightrope by Joseph Silveira, ca. 1859-1860. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.
I salute you, O Frenchman, fellow-republican,
Crosser of chasms, traverser of rivers,
Walking on a rope of hempen fiber
Above the roaring thunder of mighty Niagara.
A human miracle over a natural wonder,
You walk step by step on the tautened rope
Above the spume, the spray, the ever-rising vapor
Of the cataract’s incessantly tumbling torrent.
On a filament, balanced between America and Canada,
You perform mid-crossing an impudent somersault
Over a cumulus cloud of spray-water rising.
Small man with balancing-pole, in circus costume,
You wear a blindfold and saunter over the abyss
In the watery smells of the misty air.
You cannot hear the shouts and cheers of the thousands
Watching your nimble footwork over precipitous vistas,
As we applaud the magnitude of your achievements
Above the magnificent drop of the roaring waters.
O Blondin, bridger of chasms,
I extol your unique intrepidity
As I salute Niagara afresh in this song.
The torrent unabashed, unabated, rushes headlong to crash
Into the tumult of the diluvian waterfall,
A half-drowned rainbow spectral in all that spray.
Above it you walk on a tightrope and all the while
Blue Erie moves towards Ontario
Over mighty Niagara falling, night and day.
First published in his collection Voice Mail, 2002
This poem was inspired by the painting by Silveira at the top of the page.
Poet Duncan Forbes is the author of seven collections, the most recent of which is Human Time (2020) His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies and have been published by Faber, Secker and Enitharmon who brought out a Selected Poems in 2009.
Born and educated in Oxford, he has taught English Language and Literature for many years and – apart from writing poetry – is also interested in painting and the visual arts. Duncan has written essays and articles on a variety of subjects.
YE VENERABLE WATERS ! that declaim ‡‡Of hoar Antiquity and deeds remote, ‡‡And from the hollow of that thundrous throat
Breath’st thought to put our shallow schemes to shame !
Before the Norsemen or Columbus came ‡‡Westward across th’ untried Atlantic wave ;
Ay, ere the Red Sea saw the guiding Flame ‡‡That led the hosts of Israel, thou didst rave
With thy eternal tongue of fuming waters ! ‡‡And shall the mongering hand of heedless men ‡‡With scornful touch thy loveliness disdain ?
Arise ! ye beauty-loving sons and daughters ! ‡‡The Sovereign Spirit of this vocal glen ‡‡Shall give you thanks out of his awful fane !
Source: Arthur John Lockhart. The Birds of the Cross, and Other Poems. Winterport, Me.: C.R. Lougee, 1909.
