Mrs. Phebe A Hanaford, Universalist Minister, women’s rights activist, lesbian, and author
Awe-struck I stand
Beside this avalanche of waves, and hear
The voice of God from out these watery depths.
Emotion-full, my soul in vain essays
To speak the thoughts that by this scene have birth.
Hark! to the voice of many waters here:
Like that great voice in Patmos heard by John,
It speaks of power, resistless energy,
And mighty purpose unconfined by man.
To me it speaks of God’s almighty love,
Forever surging round the human soul:
The rocks of sin, the shoals of ignorance,
But bid those waves of love in tumult rise,
In rapids like old ocean’s storm-waves, or, as here,
In one vast water-sheet, the cataract’s plunge.
Thus shall it flow till time shall be no more,
And every soul is borne upon its waves,
All cleansed by its pure waters, to the land
Where, joyful, they shall all be moored at last.
Source: Charles Mason Dow. Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls. Albany: State of New York, 1921. p. 756-757
Originally published in Mrs. Phebe A. Hanaford. From Shore to Shore and Other Poems. Boston: D. B. Russell; San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co., 1871.
Also published in Johnson, Richard L. (ed). Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898 (transcribed by memory as Johnson didn’t have a copy of it when his book was going to press)
Horseshoe Falls with a Storm, 1847, by Henry Samuel Davis, hand-tinting by Erna Jahnke. Courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library
Niagara captive! And by ribbons led!
His mighty force with that of toiling head
And hand to join. So changed since ancient days
When red men chanted hymns of praise;
In flower-laden white canoe
Each spring their fairest maiden sent into
The Thunder of the Waters.
Niagara an adult and to Effort bred —
No more to play the livelong day,
But proudly share the sweat and grime
Of stalwart manhood’s laboring prime.
The evergrowing purpose runs; —
Earth’s wealth is measured, not the sun’s;
The stewards of great treasure may
Not waste Tomorrow’s dire need
For Pleasure’s or for Profit’s greed.
Oh, Hercules, still at thy labors keep!
Canst take the raging current from the flood
And swiftly, silent ’round a cable sweep?
Ye Seven Wonders of the ancient world,
Long since into oblivion hurled,
Your kings and gods born to commemorate —
‘Tis to the people do we dedicate
The Wonders of Today.
Source: Charles Mason Dow. Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls. Albany: State of New York, 1921. p840-841.
Originally published in Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering, March, 1913
Through drifty silver smoke, that’s opalescent,
The soft-spun rainbows curve, each one a crescent
And we who stand, where once the hoary otter
Trailed sooty moles, behold the self-same water
And revel in the tender-tinted blur
That blows about this perpendicular
Descent these maiden-veils, so evanescent —
One feels the beautiful, our God, a-stir.
From dim concealment whips of color leap,
His many glories, powers, find voice and keep
The living spirit conscious of the deep.
The mind can pierce the past — the fragrant wood —
Each wild flower with its aureole, a snood,
In convents green that shield each sisterhood :
The tallish primrose in its shapely scone A candle for some barren place of stone. We see how driven drifts of spray can linger In opal moonlight, star-companioned : finger
The budding pine tree, tipped with emerald crosses, And underneath, the cool and long drenched mosses — We’ve touched the tarnished rocks and silver bosses : There seems no sadness — other songs malinger.
Again one sees a twisting vine, a rope Of wild growth twining on a footless slope, Men descending, English Lord, or cotter, To catch this very view of misting water. . . Upon our hands spilt dews, like some baptism To honor daily idylls, heroism ; And early Warriorswith their many nations Who gave their Mystic One their bright oblations Of fruit and flower and youth, like ancient Stoic — (Soul-courage may not deem itself heroic) —
And now we make ourselves our consecrations.
Within these organ-tones of color-thunder There tides to mind an old, yet-dim wonder : Man’s NOT the spider forever clambering down Old causeways where forbidding rocks shall frown, Nor yet the soldier with defiant plume. . . (How many phantoms in this dull-green gloom) — But here he stands so near the Farther Border
He finds in seeming chaos, love’s deep order, Serenity behind the cataclysm, The same sweet rainbow in each haunting prism — In all this welter, sheerest symmetry, And then beyond — God’s choice simplicity. Beyond the auric smoke and dazzling dews, Beyond these organ-tones that far diffuse Their song, there’s ever pierceless Mystery,
For far within Man finds himself and Thee.
But there’s more beauty than’s interpreted; (Beyond the song that’s heard, the song that’s hid,) And if there’s Immanence within the mists And Radiance where moon-gold weaves and twists Strange forms for eyes, there’s greater light within The heart of man and in the soul there’s been Implanted Truth — oh, so imperative — That we, in turn, are kin not fugitive As slaves, and not idolatrous, But His Beloved, who asks all love of us, As mists shall hide the waters from the sight This beauty-veil conceals, reveals, His Light.
Through drifty silver smoke, that’s opalescent,
The soft-spun rainbows curve, each one a crescent
And we, who stand where once the hoary otter
Trailed sooty moles, behold the self-same water
And revel in the tender-tinted blur
That blows about this perpendicular
Descent these maiden-veils, so evanescent
One feels the beautiful, our God, a-stir.
From dim concealment whips of color leap,
His many glories, powers, find voice and keep
The living spirit conscious of the Deep.
watson mist
Source: Evelyn M. Watson. Poems of the Niagara Frontier. New York: Dean & Company, 1929.
Captain Webb’s Indian Bazaar (located between the current Oakes Garden Theatre and the Rainbow Bridge). Photo courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library
How can you come to boldly gape
At some red mother, in cowling cape
Who sews stiff beads on stiffer pillows —
“Souvenirs” — but here are willows,
And here the trails and paths of their feet
In regal days found sweet.
That small papoose with wrinkled chin
Now gravely offers — a moccasin,
And there a princess, with features weathered,
Wears weeds — oh, once an arrow feathered
She flashed — or rather some ancestress
In doe-skin, festal dress.
But if they offer beads, then buy,
Theirs this ancient forestry —
Theirs the windy sun-steeped willows
With roots beneath the pouring billows —
Theirs a grim regality
Chiding, chiding me.
Source: Evelyn M. Watson. Poems of the Niagara Frontier. New York: Dean & Company, 1929.
Crowds at the Victoria Park Station at the top of Clifton Hil, 1920l. Photo courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library
Yellow trolley cars like golden pumpkins
Disgorging Cinderellas (for the day,)
And young Prince Charmings, friendly country bumpkins…
(They recently were married, do you say?)
Bright bazaars with giddy banners flying —
Basilisks, gorgons, carved, or sphinx —
And gaudy postal cards just right for lying —
And here’s a fount of rosy, foolish drinks,
Niagara Falls emblazoned on a cup ;
And, in a sugar-shell, old fashioned scenes —
Once-regal Indians now lifting up
A beaded thing, the Waterfall in greens.
The raucous hawker in the street is quelled. . .
(Administration building ? Left, sir. . . )
By that deep throbbing tone unparalleled
Authentic Voice that makes man’s pulses stir. . .
More Indians in the apses of the grove ;
The islands with their edges greenly shaded ;
And shy young couples — walking out — for love ?
Cabs and busses endlessly paraded.
The bridges where one pauses to inquire
Of very soul if eyes have seen aright ;
Sea-green, and speeding waters dripping fire —
The heavy masses slipping out of sight. . .
A far-set rocky isle by rustic bridge,
And then, within the river, one sharp jag
(Gull Island once ? It seems vast privilege
To meditate — the mightiest so brag.)
And now, again, that climax of the trip,
Observed but only to benumb the sense ; The pouring masses ceaselessly that slip
Into dread chasms of Magnificence. . . .
Source: Evelyn M. Watson. Poems of the Niagara Frontier. New York: Dean & Company, 1929.
