Niagara by Christopher Pearse Cranch

niagara cranch — *General View From New Suspension Bridge.*
*Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library*

I stood within a vision’s spell;
‡‡ I saw, I heard. The liquid thunder
Went pouring to its foaming hell,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡And it fell,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Ever, ever fell
Into the invisible abyss that opened under.

I stood upon a speck of ground;
‡‡ Before me fell a stormy ocean.
I was like a captive bound;
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡And around
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡A universe of sound
Troubled the heavens with ever-quivering motion.

Down, down forever–down, down forever,
‡‡ Something falling, falling, falling,
Up, up forever–up, up forever,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Resting never,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Boiling up forever,
Steam-clouds shot up with thunder-bursts appalling.

A tone that since the birth of man,
‡‡ Was never for a moment broken,
A word that since the world began,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡And waters ran
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Hath spoken still to man ̶
Of God and of Eternity hath spoken.

Foam-clouds there forever rise
‡‡ With a restless roar o’erboiling ̶
Rainbows stooping from the skies
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Charm the eyes,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Beautiful they rise,
Cheering the cataracts to their mighty toiling.

And in that vision as it passed,
‡‡ Was gathered terror, beauty, power:
And still when all has fled, too fast,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡And I at last
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Dream of the dreamy past,
My heart is full when lingering on that hour.

October 1838

Source: Christopher Pearse Cranch. Poems. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1844

Also published in abbreviated version, under Anonymous, in Myron T. Pritchard, comp. Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1901.

A Ballad of the Caroline by Anonymous

steamer caroline

Sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy

When first Mackenzie’s rebel band
Was beat at Gallows Hill, sir,
To Buffalo they did retreat
And said we used him ill, sir.

CHORUS:

Yankee-doodle, boys, huzzah,
Down, outside, and up the middle;
Yankee-doodle, boys, huzzah,
Trumpet, drum and fiddle.

The Buffalonians sympathized
And kicked up such a roar, sir,
And kicked up such a windy noise
It reached the British shore, sir.

The steamer, bound for Navy Isle,
Left Buffalo one morning
For to assist Mackenzie’s band,
Britannia’s thunder scorning.

But when the lion shook his mane,
And looked a little grim, sir,
He said ’twas not a Texas game
That they could play with him, sir.

A party left the British shore,
Led on by gallant Drew, sir,
To set the Caroline on fire,
And beat her pirate crew, sir.

The Yankees say they did invent
The steamboat first of all, sir;
But Britons taught their Yankee boats
To navigate the Falls, sir.

The spirit of our Wolfe and Brock
Doth still around us hover,
And still we stand on Queenston’s rock
To drive the Yankees over.

No slave shall ever breathe our air,
No tyrant’s laws shall bind us,
So keep your Yankee mob at home
For Britons still you’ll find us.

Source: Kevin McCabe, ed. The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines, Ont. : Blarney Stone Books, 1999.

Originally published: Jubilee History of Thorold, Township and Town, Thorold, 1897-8

The burning Steamer Caroline went over the Horseshoe Falls on the night of December 29, 1837. Read about the burning of the Caroline at the Niagara Falls Museums website

To The Old School House on Lundy’s Lane by E. Anglian

When time with ruthless wings sweeps on,
    The earth of all its bygone best is shriven;
And so, old edifice, thy day is done;
    The newer day asks more than thou hast given.

In honest hearts a thought for thee enshrined,
    Of sheltering walls in days almost forgot;
When knowledge forced on the unwilling mind
    Saved many from ignominy's cheerless lot.

Man's mind is like a shallow streamlet flowing,
    Forever winding onward to the sea
Of time's oblivion, and the growing
    Like rare immortal fountain, starts with thee.

Prayers offered have ascended from thy walls
    For benefits the which our fickle mind
Scarce can remember, yet those earnest calls
    Brought sweet, refreshing mercy to mankind.

If in the rushing years that are to be
    No steadfast stone of memory marks thy end,
When rich endeavor finds its tide in thee,
    Thou has not been in vain, old hoary friend.

Source: Niagara Falls Evening Review, December 22, 1915.

Before the poem: “I see that the old school has already been pulled down. It was, I believe, also used as a church, and this, with other things, caused me to write these new lines, which, if you think worthy, I shall be glad to see printed in your paper.”

Niagara by Thomas Gold Appleton

Though the dusk has extinguished the green
And the glow of the down-falling silver,
In my heart I prefer this subdued,
Cathedral-like gloom on the water:
When the fancy capriciously wills,
Nor loves to define or distinguish,
As a dream which enchants us with fear;
And scarce throbs the heart unaffrighted.
With a colour and voice of its own
I behold this wondrous creature
More as a living thing.
And joyous with joy Titanic,
Its brothers in sandstone are locked,
Yet from their graves speak to it.
It sings to them as it moves,
And the hills and uplands re-echo,
The sunshine kindles its scales,
And they gleam with opal and sapphire.
It uplifts its tawny mane,
With its undulations of silver,
And tosses through showers of foam,
Its flanks seamed with shadow and sunshine.
Like the life of man is its course,
Born far in some cloudy sierra,
Dimpled and wayward and small,
O’erleaped by the swerving roebuck;
But enlarging with mighty growth,
And wearing wide lakes for its bracelets,
It moves, the king of streams,
As man wears the crown of his manhood.
It shouts to the loving fields,
Which toss to it flowers and perfume;
It eddies and winds round its isles,
And its kisses thrill them with rapture;
Till it fights in its strength and o’ercomes
The rocks which would bar its progress.
The earth hears its cries of rage,
As it tramples them in its rushing,
Leaping, exultant above
And smiting them in derision;
Till at length, its life fulfilled,
Sublime in majestic calmness,
It submits to death, and falls
With a beauty it wins in dying,
Still, wan, prone, till curtains of foam enclose it,
To arise a spirit of mist,
And return to the Heaven it came from.

As deepens the night, all is changed,
And the joy of my dream is extinguished:
I hear but a measureless prayer,
As of multitudes wailing in anguish;
I see but one fluttering plunge,
As if angels were falling from Heaven.
Indistinctly, at times, I behold
Cuthullin and Ossian’s old heroes
Look at me with eyes sad with tears,
And a summons to follow their flying,
Absorbed in wild, eerie rout,
Of wind-swept and desolate spectres.
As deepens the night, a clear cry
At times cleaves the boom of the waters;
Comes with it a terrible sense
Of suffering extreme and forever.
The beautiful rainbow is dead,
And gone are the birds that sang through it.
The incense so mounting is now
A stifling, sulphurous vapour.
The abyss is the hell of the lost,
Hopeless falling to fires everlasting.

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

Also published in Johnson, Richard L. (ed). Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898

Goat Island – Thomas Gold Appleton

Goat

Peace and perpetual quiet are around,
Upon the erect and dusky file of stems,
Sustaining yon far roof, expelling sound,
Through which the sky sparkles (a rain of gems
Lost in the forest’s depth of shade), the sun
At times doth shoot an arrow of pure gold,
Flecking majestic trunks with hues of dun,
Veining their barks with silver, and betraying
Secret initials tied in true love knots;
Of hearts no longer through green alleys straying,
But stifled in the world’s distasteful grots.
The silence in monastic, save in spots
Where heaves a glimmer of uncertain light,
And rich wild tones enchant the woodland night.

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

Also published in Johnson, Richard L. (ed). Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898.

Category: Niagara Falls Poetry

Niagara by Christopher Pearse Cranch

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