Category: Niagara Falls Poetry

Niagara (1888 version) by Lydia Huntley Sigourney

sigourney niagara flow

sigourney niagara flow
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
1791-1865

Flow on forever, in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty.   Yea, flow on
Unfathomed and resistless.   God hath set
His rainbow on thy forehead; and the cloud
Mantled around thy feet.   And he doth give
Thy voice of thunder power to speak of Him
Eternally, — bidding the lip of man
Keep silence — and upon thy rocky altar pour
Incense of awe-struck praise.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Ah! who can dare
To lift the insect-trump of earthly hope,
Or love, or sorrow, mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn? Even Ocean shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood, and all his waves
Retire abashed.   For he doth sometimes seem
To sleep like a spent labourer, and recall
His wearied billows from their vexing play,
And lull them to a cradle calm; but thou
With everlasting, undecaying tide,
Dost rest not, night or day.   The morning stars,
When first they sang o‘er young creation‘s birth,
Heard thy deep anthem; and those wrecking fires,
That wait the archangel‘s signal to dissolve
This solid earth, shall find Jehovah‘s name
Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears
On thine unending volume.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Every leaf,
That lifts itself within thy wide domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray,
Yet tremble at the baptism.   Lo! — yon birds
Do boldly venture near, and bathe their wing
Amid thy mist and foam.   ‘Tis meet for them
To touch thy garment‘s hem, and lightly stir
The snowy leaflets of thy vapour wreath,
For they may sport unharmed amid the cloud,
Or listen at the echoing gate of Heaven,
Without reproof.   But, as for us, it seems
Scarce lawful, with our broken tones, to speak
Familiarly of thee. Methinks, to tint
Thy glorious features with our pencil‘s point,
Or woo thee to the tablet of a song,
Were profanation.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Thou dost make the soul
A wondering witness of thy majesty,
But as it presses with delirious joy
To pierce thy vestibule, dost chain its step,
And tame its rapture with the humbling view
Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand
In the dread presence of the Invisible,
As if to answer to its God through thee.

Punctuation varies from source to source.

Source: Rhine, Alice Hyneman. Niagara Park illustrated : original and selected, descriptions, poems and adventures. New York: William T. Hunter, 1888

Also in the anthology Myron T. Pritchard, comp. Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrup Publishing Co., 1901

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

Read about Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Read the 1835 version of this poem

The Winter King at Niagara Falls by Caroline Eleanor Wilkinson

winter king

winter king
Horseshoe Falls and American Falls in Winter, March, 1927. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

The Winter King makes splendent gems, to deck Niagara‘s
‡‡‡‡rugged shore.
At night he deftly strings them there, then adds in daylight to
‡‡‡‡his store;
He captures snow, the pearly spray, and weaves them into
‡‡‡‡patterns rare;
The water‘s edge, the banks so steep he wraps in frosted
‡‡‡‡garments fair.
With filmy lace in clinging grace, the little shrubs are sweetly
‡‡‡‡gowned.
All crusted o‘er with diamonds bright, they trail on snowy
‡‡‡‡coated ground.
The trees of pine in glory shine, their branches bending
‡‡‡‡very low,
Laden down and drooping ‘neath the crystallized and
‡‡‡‡gleaming snow.
Below the Falls an ice mound glints — by old King Winter‘s
‡‡‡‡breath ‘twas formed;
The amethystine water‘s edge with great ice hummocks
‡‡‡‡is adorned,
From shore to shore‘s a bridge of ice, as marvellous as
‡‡‡‡artist‘s dream.
While underneath imprisoned is the sobbing, surging
‡‡‡‡stream.
O fairyland of ice and snow, mysterious is your allure! —
A picture chaste and beautiful and symbolizing all
‡‡‡‡things pure.

Source: Caroline Eleanor Wilkinson. Poems that Appeal. Niagara Falls, Ont. : F. H. Leslie, Limited, Printers, 1928

 

Voice of Niagara by Caroline Eleanor Wilkinson

voice niagara

voice niagara
General View of Niagara Falls, ca. 1900. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Thou art the queen of all rivers, rejoicing in song,
‡‡As you toss the white spray, driving mist to the shore;
And your voice echoes jubilant, resonant, strong —
‡‡O such music ne‘er greeted a mortal before.

And sublime your melodious, thundering boom, —
‡‡A far reaching refrain, so triumphant and long,
‘Tis the meeting of waters that dash to their doom,
‡‡And the sweet intermezzo that creeps in your song.

But the centuries come and the centuries go,
‡‡And the white man now treads where the Indian raced;
Loud your waters still sing, and as restlessly flow,
‡‡As when near the great cataract, wigwams were placed.

You are tragic in splendour, primordially grand,
‡‡And your mystical waves glow with opaline sheen,
With perpetual song, swelling out o‘er the land,
‡‡You enchant us forever, magnificent Queen.

Source: Caroline Eleanor Wilkinson. Poems That Appeal. Niagara Falls, Ont. : F.H. Leslie, Limited,. Printers, 1928.

voice niagara

Niagara Falls by Caroline Eleanor Wilkinson

niagara wilkinson

niagara wilkinson
Niagara Falls. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Stupendous in their majesty, the maddened waters leap,
‡‡Then raging like a demon who disdains the thought of sleep,
In wild abandon o‘er the brink they toss and foam and curl —
‡‡In the great abyss they surge and sink, then down the river whirl.

A silver cloud of spray, ethereal as bridal veil,
‡‡Rolls gaily toward the shore, in misty, shimm‘ring masses pale,
When in the sun‘s clear light, revealed, are bright prismatic rays,
‡‡That scintillate in rainbow hues, enchanting all who gaze.

But when the laggard sun, has not the surging waters kissed,
‡‡Then moody old Niagara sulks, in pall of dull grey mist,
While meeting waters dash and fight, then boiling pass along,
‡‡With a deep toned voice resounding in an everlasting song.

O the tumult and the grandeur of the water as it rolls —
‡‡We marvel as we look, with exaltation in our souls;
A seething, rushing torrent flows, whose troubled heaving breast,
‡‡Through ages has not known repose, tranquility or rest.

Source: Caroline Eleanor Wilkinson. Poems That Appeal. Niagara Falls, Ont. : F.H. Leslie, Limited, Printers, 1928.

Uncle Alvin at Niagara by Almon Trask Allis

Alvin   

alvin
Artist’s Sketch of Three Sisters and Goat Islands Just Above Niagara Falls. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

“The last excursion of the year,” I read the other day,
Affordin’ opportunity to see grand old Niagara ;
And for a dollar and a half, to go up there and back,
And see the sights, and ride above two hundred miles of track,
Seemed like we’d get our money’s worth, if we could get away,
And leave the farm and kitchen cares behind us for a day.
We’d been a-wantin’, all these years, to go and see the falls,
But, somehow, when the chances came there’ d be so many calls
For both our time and money, that the chances slipped away,
While year climbed on the top of year, ’til we are growin’ gray ;
And still the cares we have to meet are such a clingin’ kind,
It’s often mighty difficult to slip them off behind,
And dump them in a heap somewhere, or lay them on a shelf,
While we get out from under, and can slip off by ourself.
But nature seemed to favor us ; the season was so fine
We got our summer’s work along a bit ahead of time ;
And nothin’ seemed a-crowdin’, like, and coaxin’ to be done,
As is the case too frequently, to keep us on the run ;
And Nancy hadn’t been away, exceptin’ to the fair,
To loosen up the constant strain of daily wear and tear
Of wrestlin’ with problems which perplex a woman’s brain,
And keep her fingers busy, and her muscles on the strain,
For such a long time back that I’m almost ashamed to tell,
And if I really wanted to, I couldn’t very well ;
And I, myself, had worked so long, as farmers have to do,
To keep the work from snarlin’, like, and keep it payin’, too,
That I was glad to see a chance to lay aside the strain
Which makes the years to tell on me as well as Nancy Jane ;
And when I read the notice, why, it seemed to strike us so,
That both of us together said, “I guess we’d better go.”
And so the thing was settled, and we’d picked our grapes and plums
To be ahead of frost or thieves, provided either comes ;
For frosts may be expected almost any pleasant night,
And thieves, if not expected, are so plenty that they might ;
And Nancy had our luncheon baked, and I had bought some cheese,
And she had found a paste-board box, as handy as you please
To put our picnic dinner in ; so when the mornin’ came,    Continue reading “Uncle Alvin at Niagara by Almon Trask Allis” →