Category: Niagara Falls Poetry

Queen of the Mist by John Joseph O’Regan

Annie Edson Taylor, Queen of the Mist, with her barrel and her cat. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
Annie Edson Taylor, Queen of the Mist, with her barrel and her cat. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
All hail to the Queen of the Mist,
     Brave Anna Edson Taylor;
She has beaten all former records,
     By her courage, grit and valor.

This great heroine of our nation,
     Has won both fortune and fame;
Now people all over creation,
     Will praise this illustrious dame.

On the twenty-fourth day of October,
     In the year ninteen hundred and one;
The Queen of the Mist in a barrel,
     The risk of her life did run.

Over the wonderful Horseshoe Falls,
     Where the waters roar like thunder;
The barrel leaped within sight of all,
     With our intrepid lady wonder.

Annie Taylor being assisted out of the barrel after going over Niagara Falls. Left is stunter Carlisle Graham, right is riverman Red Hill. Photo courtesy <a href=
Niagara Falls Public Library” width=”285″ height=”300″ class=”size-medium wp-image-822″ /> Annie Taylor being assisted out of the barrel after going over Niagara Falls. Left is stunter Carlisle Graham , right is riverman Red Hill. Photo courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library

Down through the surging, foaming deep,
     She came in her barrel of oak;
The crowd with rapturous cheers did leap,
     When she was taken out and spoke.

This brave woman, who knows no deception,
     Did what no one did before;
And was given a hearty reception,
     When she landed safe on shore.

Here’s to the Lady of the Cataract,
     Who has Spartan grit and valor;
Thrice, all hail, Queen of the Mist,
     Brave Anna Edson Taylor.

She has beaten the world’s record,
     Her praises we will sing;
Although a little disfigured,
     She is certainly still in the ring.

Niagara Gazette. October 26, 1901.

Source: Whalen, Dwight. The Lady Who Conquered Niagara: The Annie Edson Taylor Story. Brewer, Maine: EGA Books, 1990.

Learn more about Annie Edson Taylor

Nymph of Niagara by Samuel Lover

A Nymph of the Waves performed by Cathrina Bartho. Click for more information on this video from the Library of Congress

Nymph of Niagara!     Sprite of the mist!
With a wild magic my brow thou hast kissed;
I am thy slave, and my mistress art thou,
For thy wild kiss of magic is still on my brow.

I feel it as first when I knelt before thee,
With thy emerald robe flowing brightly and free,
Fringed with the spray-pearls and floating in mist,
Thus ‘t was my brow with wild magic you kissed.

Thine am I still, and I‘ll never forget
The moment the spell on my spirit was set;
Thy chain but a foam-wreath, yet stronger by far
Than the manacle, steel-wrought, for captive of war.

For the steel it will rust, and the war will be o‘er,
And the manacled captives be free as before;
While the foam-wreath will bind me forever to thee;
I love the enslavement and would not be free!

Nymph of Niagara! play with the breeze,
Sport with the fawns ‘mid the old forest trees;
Blush into rainbows at kiss of the sun,
From the gleam of his dawn till his bright course be run.

I‘ll not be jealous, for pure is thy sporting,
Heaven-born is all that around thee is courting;
Still will I love thee, sweet Sprite of the mist,
At first when my brow with wild magic you kissed!

Source: Myron T. Pritchard, comp. Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing, 1901.

Written on a tour of North America between 1846 – 1848.

First published in Samuel Lover.  Barney the Baron. London: John Dicks, 1860.

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

More about Samuel Lover

Somewhere Between Detroit and Syracuse by Jessica Lyne Jefferson

for: S.D.

We walked barefoot downtown,
Took off our raincoats under the falls,
With our pant legs rolled up,
We swam in Niagara’s fountain.

We met each other there.

We danced in a three foot pond,
Playing with someone else’s children.
Side-stepping forgotten wishes,
We filled the lines of our poem.

You asked me to marry you there.

There, when I told you of my
Dysfunctional family and lovers,
A girl’s need for stability; her strife
Of seeking greatness and purpose.

You said we would live life humble.

You went back to New York;
Taught your son to say my name.
Wrote me into your lectures;
Read my poems to your class.

You asked me to marry you there.

I, lost a tear for my ignorance,
Stepped away from myself,
Trying to recreate my vulnerability-
An insulting offer to you.

So I put those words away.

You were the first mirror to see my back eyes.
The first man to curse a shooting star,
For the raging flame it was.
The first poem I wrote,
As a woman.

 

Source: The author, 2001. Written in 1997.

A Moment by Jessica Lyne Jefferson

Sun Through the Mist at Niagara Falls by Andrew Porteus
Sun Through the Mist at Niagara Falls by Andrew Porteus

I want to thank you for the ten seconds
When the seasons passed.
The photograph you took became a token
Of this wonderfully sad woman
You watched stare at the falls
As if she knew of the bodies it relished.
Like sun on the mist.
Rapture rolling smooth winds
Along its back, like a creature.

When she held out her arms, you imagined
Her embracing the blues and greens
Of friends and lovers who watched her as she jumped –
Afloat in fog everytime –
You thought of her skin
And how her shoulders must feel
With the spray of the river upon her.

 

Source: The author, July 2001.

Niagara by Sarah Pratt

niagara sarah pratt

niagara sarah pratt
Portage Around the Falls of Niagara at Table Rock, by George Catlin, 1847/1848

Niagara, I love to hear thy voice,
And while I look on thy array of waters
Careering onward with resistless force,
And showing forth all the might and power of Him
Who ruleth over all — ’tis then my soul
Is filled with awe, and I can realize
That God is here, that he is present now.
Oh! let a song of praise ascend to Him
Who gives us all things richly to enjoy,
And while we gaze upon this glorious scene,
Let us remember thou dost shadow forth
The glory of Omnipotence.
Awe-struck we gaze on these o’erhanging rocks,
And mark thy waters as they onward flow,
And hear, Niagara! thy unceasing roar.
We watch the clouds of spray as they ascend,
And view the bright inimitable green,
Too dazzling to the eye, and then we feel
That scenes like these, stupendous and sublime,
Must lose their greatness when compared with Him
Whose presence fills the immensity; then while ’tis ours
To gaze upon His works, may we be led
To worship and adore; to live for Him,
That when earth’s scenes shall fail before our eyes,
We may behold more glorious worlds above,
And through the sacrifice of Him who gave
His life for fallen man, dwell ever more
Where love, and joy, and peace forever reign.

New York, August 12, 1847.

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.

niagara sarah pratt