Category: Niagara Falls Poems

Hymn of Niagara by Thomas Hill, D.D.

hymn

hymn
The Falls of Niagara From the Canadian Side, 1868. Painted by B. Hess. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Here I stand ! here from the flood, raving unceasingly,
Hoarse, shrill murmurs arise; shrill as the wind, when it
‡‡‡‡Roars through the trees stripped of their foliage,
‡‡‡‡Singing its wild anthem of liberty.

With these come to the ear, ever at intervals,
Quick notes, rattling and sharp; like the artillery
‡‡‡‡Heard when a storm, driving up rapidly,
‡‡‡‡Crashes the oaks down with its thunderbolts.

Now rise, muffled in mist, rolling up heavily,
Deep tones, awfully grand, shaking the earth, as they
‡‡‡‡Swell like the low bass of the thunder-storm,
‡‡‡‡Heard by the strained ear of the listener.

Thus float over the mist ever in harmony
Three tones, joyous and free, forming Niagara’s
‡‡‡‡Anthem of praise, new every moment, yet
‡‡‡‡Changeless as time, old as eternity.

Source:  Putnam’s Magazine, May 1868, p.538

To the American Fall at Niagara by Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen

sladen

sladen
Douglas Sladen. Courtesy of the State Library of Queensland

Niagara, national emblem !  Cataract
‡‡Born of the maddened rapids, sweeping down
‡‡Direct, resistless from the abyss’s crown
Into the deep, fierce pool with vast impact
Scarce broken by the giant boulders, stacked
‡‡To meet thine onslaught, threatening to drown
‡‡Each tillaged plain, each level-loving town
‘Twixt thee and ocean.   Lo ! the type exact !

America Niagarized the world.
‡‡Europe, a hundred years agone, beheld
An avalanche, like pent-up Erie, hurled
‡‡Through barriers, to which the rocks of eld
Seemed toy things— leaping into godlike space.
A sign and wonder to the human race.

October 18, 1889

Source: Douglas Sladen, ed. Younger American Poets, 1830 – 1890. London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden and Welsh, 1891

Untitled by Anonymous

hail
Horseshoe Falls, Niagara by Sir James E. Alexander. Hand tinted by Erna Jahnke. Courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library

All hail, Niagara! by thine awful noise,
Great fear is caused in minds of little boys;
And as thou rollest with thy mighty rumble,
All must acknowledge that thou mak’st a tumble.
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever;”
And in that way thou certainly art clever.

Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848

This link takes you to the scanned version of  the 1855 version of Table Rock Album from the Hathi Trust

See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Album on this site.

Also published in the anthology  Porteus, Andrew C.  Niagara Mornings.  Niagara Falls, Ont.  Grey Borders Press, 2016 (Click for Table of Contents)

Untitled by Boz

boz

boz
Table Rock House (left) in the 1860s. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Niagara – here Nature holds its sway,
While man, with both delight and awe, doth
Gaze and wonder at its magnificence.

 

 

Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848  (Click for Table of Contents)

Also published in the anthology  Porteus, Andrew C.  Niagara Mornings.  Niagara Falls, Ont.  Grey Borders Press, 2016 (Click for Table of Contents)

Boz was a pseudonym often used by Charles Dickens. Dickens visited Niagara Falls in April, 1842. It is likely, but not certain, that Dickens penned this verse, although no date was given for it.

Apostrophe to Niagara by Frank B. Palmer

palmer

palmer
Niagara Falls, possibly by photographer Silas A. Holmes, c1855. Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is Jehovah’s fullest organ strain!
‡‡I hear the liquid music rolling, breaking.
From the gigantic pipes the great refrain
‡‡Bursts on my ravished ear, high thoughts awaking!

The low sub-bass, uprising from the deep,
‡‡Swells the great paean as it rolls supernal —
Anon, I hear, at one majestic sweep
‡‡The diapason of the keys eternal!

Standing beneath Niagara’s angry flood —
‡‡The thundering cataract above me bounding —
I hear the echo: “Man, there is a God!”
‡‡From the great arches of the gorge resounding.

Behold, O man, nor shrink aghast in fear!
‡‡Survey the vortex boiling deep before thee!
The Hand that ope’d the liquid gateway here
‡‡Hath set the beauteous bow of promise o’er thee!

Here, in the hollow of that Mighty Hand,
‡‡Which holds the basin of the tidal ocean,
Let not the jarring of the spray-washed strand
‡‡Disturb the orisons of pure devotion.

Roll on Niagara! great River King!
‡‡Beneath thy sceptre all earth’s rulers, mortal,
Bow reverently; and bards shall ever sing
‡‡The matchless grandeur of thy peerless portal!

I hear, Niagara, in this grand strain
‡‡His voice, who speaks in flood, in flame, and thunder —
Forever, mayst thou, singing, roll and reign —
‡‡Earth’s grand, sublime, supreme, supernal wonder.

Source: Severance, Frank H. Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier.  Buffalo:  The Matthews-Northrup Co.,  1899

Written in 1855

Click here to read Severance’s discussion on Palmer’s Apostrophe to Niagara  (To go directly to the page choose the html version and after it comes up add  #Page_317 to the end of the url)