Frozen Niagara River with the American Falls in the background just before the fatal disaster of February 4, 1912. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
TO MY DEAR BROTHER
ELDRIDGE STANTON (JUNIOR)
WHO DIED BRAVELY AT NIAGARA, ON THE AFTERNOON OF
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4TH, 1912
No tears for thee, no tears, or sighs,
Or breaking heart —
But smiles, that thou so well that bitter hour
Didst play thy part !
Source: Virna Sheard. The Miracle and Other Poems. Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1913
A dedication to Eldridge Stanton, Junior, who died alongside his wife, Clara, and Burrell Hecock when the ice bridge across the Niagara River just below Niagara Falls broke up suddenly, leaving them adrift. Read Brian Busby’s account of the tragedy and the dedication in Virna Sheard’s book in his posting “A Dedication Born of Tragedy” in The Dusty Bookcase blog, November 7, 2019.
Sam Patch Jumped to Fame and Death. Boston Sunday Globe, August 12, 1928
The trick was breathing in, you claimed, as if that was all they gathered to watch as you milked the crowd in your matador sash, rum-slurring some speech no one could hear above the river’s thunder, quipping your catchphrase long worn threadbare: Some things can be done as well as others. But most things don’t sputter back even once, like that waterlogged schooner two autumns before, lunging over Niagara as billed, loaded with its Strange Cargo— bison, two bears, a bonneted fox, raccoons, a wing-clipped eagle— & disappearing into a wilderness of froth. Sam Patch, you dropped arrow-straight, untethered from earth, for cash, for booze, a lay, & yet here I am plundering your life for some path towards saying in our water’s blind wrath, in the body from that roaring slosh only a few times given back, despite nearly everything we choose, somehow we are blessed. I might as well beg for an ass-kick, I know. Scotch-soaked, fame-starved, cocksure, you are long-dead, unbreakable until the river broke you too & could stomach none of this. If it helps, forget the poem. Forget I said anything before I turned to you—since today inexplicably you’re all that will do—tottering sun-struck on the platform, preparing to plummet into that luminous rage & whatever that might afford.
Fallsview Boulevard in centre of photo, running from top to bottom. This is at the bottom of the hill. Imax Theatre on right, Best Western large rectangular building on left. Niagara Falls is to the right of this photo. August 22, 2005. Photo by Alina Rashid. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
My grandmother at forty woke up before dawn
to dress, put on make-up, and curl her hair.
She was divorced, a mother of five, and a waitress
at the Best Western hotel in Niagara Falls.
The job started at eight o’clock but, always,
she left her apartment on Main Street early. Turned
the key in the lock. The click in the lock
told her she had the freedom to claim the open,
silent walk. She was a waitress at the Best
Western hotel in Niagara Falls. The boss was waiting
at the job, but the shift started at eight o’clock,
and just after dawn my grandmother still found worlds
of time. Worlds enough to breathe the air and know
she was alive. In 1980, in Niagara Falls,
the air smelled of water and smoke and big car
engines. Morning leavings of tourist bacchanals
performed all night before. But she didn’t care
for any of that. She was a waitress at the Best
Western hotel, and when she walked down
the Fallsview Boulevard hill she knew—she was alive.
These days my grandmother’s legs are frail
as the stilts of dying birds, but four decades back
they were still strong enough to work all day—
work and wake again before the dawn, wake
to descend the last stretch of hill. Watch
the rising sun turn Niagara’s jagged trench
and torrent liquid gold. Now at eighty years,
my grandmother trains my gaze with misty eyes
and lifts a brittle claw. When I was forty,
she confides, I was a waitress at the Best Western
hotel. Every morning before work, I’d walk down
to Niagara Falls. Watched the water. Knew
I was alive. A smile snakes across her skull. You know,
I thought I was so old. My God, she whispers,
I’d give anything now to be forty. Walk
down the hill to the water. Alive.
Source: FJ Doucet, 2021
FJ Doucet’s work has been published in grey borders magazine, The Banister, Hamilton Arts and Letters, Red Bird Chapbook website, Ascent Aspirations, and The Lyric. She is the newest president of the Brooklin Poetry Society. Doucet was born and mostly raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and though she has since lived on three continents, Niagara continues to haunt her.
Portrait of Jonathan Kaplansky, translator of this poem
Muses, if praises you sing, I recommend that you
Extol Champlain for his courage:
Not fearing danger, he has seen so many places
His reports are pleasing to our ears.
He has seen Peru, Mexico and the wonder
Of the infernal Vulcan that spews so much fire;
And the falls of Mocosa, that offend the eye
Of those who dare to see their unequalled cascade.
He promises us to venture further still,
Convert the heathens and find the Levant.
Heading North or South to go to China.
Charitably ‘tis all for the love of God.
Bah! Cowards who never move from one place to another!
Their lives, honestly, strike me as narrow.
Source of original poem: Dow, Charles Mason. Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls , Albany: State of New York, 1921
Originally published: Champlain, Samuel de. Des sauvages ou Voyage de Samuel Champlain De Brouage, fait en la France Nouvelle l’an mil six cens trois, 1604
From Dow: “It is an interesting fact that the first book printed in Europe which contains a reference to Niagara Falls, should also contain this sonnet in which allusion is made to the Falls. The sonnet follows the dedication. The old spelling of the original is followed in the quotation. Research has not revealed any information regarding the author.” vol, 2, p693
From the 1899 book Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier by Frank Hayward Severance (p. 276-277): “The poetry of Niagara Falls is contemporary with the first knowledge of the cataract among civilized men. One may make this statement with positiveness, inasmuch as the first book printed in Europe which mentions Niagara Falls contains a poem in which allusion is made to that wonder … It seems proper, in quoting this first of all Niagara poems, to follow as closely as may be in modern type the archaic spelling of the original … I regret that some further research has failed to discover any further information regarding the poet De La Franchise. Obviously, he took rather more than the permissible measure of poet’s licence in saying that Champlain had seen Peru, a country far beyond the known range of Champlain’s travels. But in the phrase “les saults Mocosans,” the falls of Mocosa, we have the ancient name of the undefined territory afterwards labeled “Virginia.” The intent of the allusion is made plainer by Marc Lescarbot, who in 1610 wrote a poem in which he speaks of “great falls which the Indians say they encounter in ascending the St. Lawrence as far as the neighbourhood of Virginia.” The allusion can only be to Niagara.”
Jonathan Kaplansky works as a literary translator of French in Montreal. He won a
French Voices Award to translate Annie Ernaux’s Things Seen (La vie extérieure), and
recently translated a book by Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec: The Cry of Vertières: Liberation,
Memory, and the Beginning of Haiti. https://www.attlc-ltac.org/en/translator/jonathan-kaplansky-en/
Death gazed on her charms with his pale greedy eyes, ‡‡Tho’ thousands were marching before her;
As seizing the hand of his beautiful prize, ‡‡From the arms of the Bridegroom he tore her.
Hell follow’d close in the footsteps of Death, ‡‡For the precious immortal within her;
With fury he grasp’d when she sigh’d her last breath, ‡‡As it were for some perishing sinner.
But a bright band of Seraphin swift from the sky ‡‡Was there in full time to relieve her;
The fiend started back as they fronted his eye, ‡‡And he fled as they came to receive her.
Fell murderer begone! for a Saviour hath died, ‡‡They exclaim’d—the forlorn are defended;
And she bath’d in the fountain that flows from his side, ‡‡While the day of his grace was extended.
Her Judge is her Counsellor — who shall accuse! ‡‡Her Saviour, her great Mediator,
Hath purchased her life with his own; — and his dues ‡‡He now claims of her Sovereign Creator.
Then rapid as thought they enrobed her in bright ‡‡Flowing vestments of heavenly splendor:
Her charms are renewed, and shine pure as the light, ‡‡While a concert of angels attend her.
Then, to Death they replied: — Thou hast fail’d of thine aim: ‡‡‘Tis but clay thou hast gotten beside thee:
And the day draweth nigh when thy charnel-house game ‡‡Will spurn at thy rule and deride thee.
For the trumpet of Gabriel shall waken the dead ‡‡When the journey of time is completed:
Then where is thy sting?—all its venom is fled, ‡‡And the malice of hell is defeated.
The body that forms thy proud revel to day ‡‡Shall be fill’d with yon Seraph to-morrow;
And glory immortal shall crown the poor clay ‡‡That was once a frail mansion of sorrow.
