Cover of Helen Keller’s The World I Live In. Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan, Edmund Lyon, and Polly Prate at Niagara Falls, ca. 1893
She could not see the avalanche cascade
from foam-flecked marble rapids, being blind,
but torrents of egrets and apple blossoms played
whirlpools of nebulous beauty in her mind.
She could not hear, tumultuous mystery,
the thunderous plunge, a sea’s storm-breaking crests,
crescendo of a choral symphony,
only the silence when the music rests.
But the earth beneath her trembled. She could feel
a power like perseverance, truth, or love,
the joyous lifting of a bridal veil,
a thirst fulfilled, the mist, the memory of
her teacher’s cool, wet fingers like a brand,
burning that first word water in her hand.
Meryl Stratford is a poet living in Hallandale Beach, Florida.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Have thou never seen, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When the orb of day ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Lightens with his sheen ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Dark Niagara, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡How his glories act ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On the foam, and show, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡O’er the cataract, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Heaven’s beauteous bow? She, who lately plumed for flight, seeking rest above,
Saw thus over Jordan’s tide, arched, the bow of love.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Hath, at eve, thine eye ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Watched the little billow ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rise and gleam and die, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On Atlantic’s pillow — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When it seemed to thee ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Sighing into rest, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Melting peacefully ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Into ocean’s breast? She, as kindly in repose, sighed away her breath,
Peacefully and gently thus, blended into death.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Saw’st thou, when, in light, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Sabbath glories rose? ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡She, a Sabbath bright, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Saw, yet not like those. ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Longed she then to go, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rest above, to spend? ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Yes! begun below, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rest that ne’er shall end.
Voices heard she, loved ones saw, sweetly from the sky
Beckoning to their holy home, wooing her to die.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡In the troublous hour, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡In life’s weary doom, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When disease hath power, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When appears the tomb — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Where’s the sovereign arm, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Strong and swift to save? ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡What can chase alarm, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡What adorn the grave? She could answer, HE was there, swift, the sufferer knew,
HE that through the grave had passed, strong to bear her through.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When Niagara ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Lifts his bow no more, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When have fled away ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Ocean and the shore, — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡She shall live again, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Where the mortal sigh ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Heaves not, and where pain, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Yea, and Death shall die. She, a child, a seraph now, leans on Jesus’ breast,
Oh, for wings! that we might be, sweet one! thus at rest.
Source: William B. Tappan. Poet’s Tribute; Poems of William B. Tappan. Boston: King, Crocker & Brewster, 1840
William Bingham Tappan, 1794-1849. From his Poet’s Tribute.
Niagara! — the poetry of God!
Whose numbers tell, in everlasting hymn,
Only of God! The morning stars that woke
Music along their courses, early caught
Its far off echoes, and in wild delight
Returned them, softened, round the universe.
Think not, think not, Earth’s triflers! that for you And garish Day, these melodies chime on.
When ye,diminished, lost, are known not, Night,
Night to the aweful anthem ever hearkens,
And ever with new joy. Oh, how sublime
The symphony, that, under the expanse
Of stars, peals on in unexhausted power:
Niagara! — and the sole listener, Night!
Source: William B. Tappan. Poet’s Tribute; Poems of William B. Tappan. Boston: King, Crocker & Brewster, 1840
I hear the thunderous thud, the muffled roar
I see the blinding, wheeling, smiting mists,
The greens, the grays, purples, and amethysts,
From Heaven’s wide palm thy frightened cataracts pour,
And I look up beneath them and adore.
Above me hang chain lightnings on the wrists
Of summer tempests. In the awesome lists
Of contests are the thunders and thy shore.
Beneath thy quivering riven cliff I lie
And gaze into the lightning and the sky
But I hear only thee and touch and see
A hand which undergirds immensity.
Thou speakest much, but speaketh most of him;
God, God, God walks on thy watery rim.
Source: Charles Mason Dow. Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls. Albany: State of New York, 1921. p 825
Originally published in Joseph Cook. Overtones: a Book of Verse. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1903
THE WATER TALKED TO THE TURBINE ‡‡AT THE INTAKE’S COUCHANT KNEE:
Brother, thy mouth is darkness ‡‡Devouring me.
I rush at the whirl of thy bidding; ‡‡I pour and spend
Through the wheel-pit’s nether tempest. ‡‡Brother, the end?
Before fierce days of tent and javelin, ‡‡Before the cloudy kings of Ur,
Before the Breath upon the waters, ‡‡My splendors were.
Red hurricanes of roving worlds, ‡‡Huge wallow of the uncharted Sea,
The formless births of fluid stars, ‡‡Remember me.
A glacial dawn, the smoke of rainbows, ‡‡The swiftness of the canoned west,
The steadfast column of white volcanoes, ‡‡Leap from my breast.
But now, subterranean, mirthless, ‡‡I tug and strain,
Beating out a dance thou hast taught me ‡‡With penstock, cylinder, vane.
I am more delicate than moonlight, ‡‡Grave as the thunder’s rocking brow;
I am genesis, revelation, ‡‡Yet less than thou.
By this I adjure thee, brother, ‡‡Beware to offend! For the least, the dumbfounded, the conquered, ‡‡Shall judge in the end.
THE TURBINE TALKED TO THE MAN ‡‡AT THE SWITCHBOARD’S CRYPTIC KEY:
Brother, thy touch is whirlwind ‡‡Consuming me.
I revolve at the pulse of thy finger. ‡‡Millions of power I flash
For the muted and ceaseless cables ‡‡And the engine’s crash.
Like Samson, fettered, blindfolded, ‡‡I sweat at my craft;
But I build a temple I know not, ‡‡Driver and ring and shaft.
Wheat-field and tunnel and furnace, ‡‡They tremble and are aware,
But beyond thou compellest me, brother, ‡‡Beyond these, where?
Singing like sunrise on battle, ‡‡I travail as hills that bow;
I am wind and fire of prophecy, ‡‡Yet less than thou.
By this I adjure thee, brother, ‡‡Be slow to offend! For the least, the blindfolded, the conquered, ‡‡Shall judge in the end.
THE MAN STROVE WITH HIS MAKER ‡‡AT THE CLANG OF THE POWER-HOUSE DOOR:
Lord, Lord, Thou art unsearchable, ‡‡Troubling me sore.
I have thrust my spade to the caverns; ‡‡I have yoked the cataract;
I have counted the steps of the planets.‡‡ ‡‡What thing have I lacked?
I am come to a goodly country, ‡‡Where, putting my hand to the plow,
I have not considered the lilies. ‡‡Am I less than Thou?
THE MAKER SPAKE WITH THE MAN ‡‡AT THE TERMINAL-HOUSE OF THE LINE:
For delight wouldst thou have desolation ‡‡O brother mine,
And flaunt on the highway of nations ‡‡A byword and sign?
Have I fashioned thee then in my image ‡‡And quickened thy spirit of old,
If thou spoil my garments of wonder ‡‡For a handful of gold?
I wrought for thy glittering possession ‡‡The waterfall’s glorious lust;
It is genesis, revelation,— ‡‡Wilt thou grind it to dust?
Niagara, the genius of freedom, ‡‡A creature for base command!
Thy soul is the pottage thou sellest; ‡‡Withhold thy hand.
Or take him and bind him and make him ‡‡A magnificent slave if thou must —
But remember that beauty is treasure ‡‡And gold is dust.
Yea, thou, returned to the fertile ground ‡‡In the humble days to be,
Shalt learn that he who slays a splendor ‡‡Has murdered Me.
By this I adjure thee, brother, ‡‡Beware to offend!
For the least, the extinguished, the conquered, ‡‡Shall judge in the end.
