The Battle of Queenston Heights by Lieut.-Col. J. R. Wilkinson

Fought October 13th, 1812

They crossed in the gray of the morning,
‡‡Stole o’er from the other shore,
To invade the land of the Maple Leaf,
‡‡Two thousand proud foes, or more:
A detachment of the old Forty-Ninth,
‡‡And Dennis’s brave volunteers,
Opposed their landing determinedly,
‡‡Opening on them with cheers.

The roar of the guns from the battery
‡‡Rolled down Niagara’s gorge,
Awakening Brock and his fearless men
‡‡From their rest at old Fort George.
And in a hot haste Brock and his aides-de-camp
‡‡Rode fast through the pale, cold light,
Bidding Sheaffe and his men to follow on
‡‡To aid in the coming fight.

Meanwhile the Americans won the heights,
‡‡And the guns half way below;
Their loss was a serious menace, too,
‡‡In the hands of the haughty foe.
Swift as the fleet wind Brock gained the vale
‡‡And lifted his flashing eye,
Measuring the foe on the cold, gray steeps,
‡‡And the battery nearer by.

“The guns must be won!” Brock quickly cried,
‡‡And came an answering cheer
From the intrepid, ready Forty-Ninth —
‡‡Brave souls devoid of all fear!
“Forward! charge home to the battery’s side!”
‡‡And dauntless he led the way,
Driving the foe from the smoking guns
‡‡By the cold steel’s deadly play.

Heroically leading, he drew their fire,
‡‡And fearlessly fighting fell,
Pierced through the breast by a mortal shot,
‡‡The leader all loved so well.
“Don’t mind me,” he thoughtfully cried;
‡‡“Push on, brave York volunteers!”
Sent a message to his sister over the sea,
‡‡His eyes suffused with tears.

Thus perished war’s genius gloriously,
‡‡A great leader, young in years;
So loved and mourned for, brave, pure soul,
‡‡Thy name we bedew with tears.
Gallantly Sheaffe by St. David’s moves up,
‡‡Turning their flank by the way,
Gaining the heights by an impetuous rush,
‡‡Not a moment held at bay.

Consuming volleys they hurl on the foe,
‡‡Then charge with their deadly steel,
And hundreds are slain in the mad mêlée —
‡‡See, the foe in panic reel!
The British line sweeps resistlessly down;
‡‡The proud foe must surely yield.
Ha! they break — they break into headlong flight
‡‡In defeat from that blood-red field!

Over the heights in mad flight now leaping,
‡‡Some were impaled on the trees,
Where mockingly their garments fluttered
‡‡For years in the storm and breeze.
Some plunged in the cold, rushing river
‡‡To gain safely the other shore,
But were lost in the swirl of its waters,
‡‡And were heard of nevermore.

Nine hundred men surrendered to Sheaffe,
‡‡A force greater than his own.
Ah! ’twas a gallant day, and nobly won;
‡‡Signally the enemy were overthrown.
And standing there on the glorious Heights,
‡‡They cheered for country and King;
They unfurled the “flag of a thousand years”;
‡‡Their shouts o’er the scene did ring.

‘Twas a far-famed day for our lovèd land,
‡‡Ring it over the world so wide;
Like veterans Canadians fought that day,
‡‡With the regulars side by side.
Dearly the victory was won for us
‡‡In the death of beloved Brock.
Immortal hero! thy irreparable loss
‡‡Was to all a grievous shock.

They muffled their drums and reversed their arms,
‡‡And marshalled around his bier,
And solemnly bowed their war-worn heads,
‡‡And silently dropped a tear.
E’en the painted savages loved him well,
‡‡And o’er each stoical face
Stole a shadow of pain and tenderness,
‡‡Hallowing that sacred place.

A grateful country has planted there
‡‡A monument tow’ring high,
His memory e’er to perpetuate,
‡‡Pointing ever to the sky.
The hero and his aide, parted not by death,
‡‡Secure their relics rest there,
In the lovely land of the Maple Leaf
‡‡Ever so loyal and fair.

Aye, a grateful country placed it there —
‡‡On earth there’s no grander scene —
And we sing with a grateful, fervant heart
‡‡To our Country and our Queen.
Revere, then, the dead, and honor them still,
‡‡They died our freedom to save;
God bless the flag of a thousand years,
‡‡May it long o’er us proudly wave!

Source: Lieut.-Col. J. R. Wilkinson. Canadian Battlefields and Other Poems. 2nd ed. Toronto, William Briggs, 1901

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King of the Mist by Diana Williamson

Annie Edson Taylor

Wanted to be first over the falls

A school teacher from New York

She was gonna’ show them all

She had a custom barrel made

But first tested it on a cat

The poor thing plunged over the falls

It had no say, cause that was that

Luckily the cat emerged

A little tattered but still alive

So on her 63^rd birthday, 1901

Ms. Taylor, finally took her dive

They called her Queen of the Mist

Queen of the Mist

The first to conquer the falls

But in real actuality

The cat deserved it all

The glory, the title, the award for the first

The cat deserves it all

Cause the Queen of the Mist, the Queen of the Mist

Was the second to conquer the Falls

She peddled her wares for many a day

As souvenirs to passers by

‘Til her manager ran off with the famous barrel

And the detectives bled her dry

She swore she’d never do such a feat again

That once, was already too much

They say she lived from hand to mouth

And the fame was never enough

But the tawdry cat he lived the life

Fat on rats and crumpets and tea

Everyone wanted to know the cat

Who was famous, as famous can be

Sometimes you can hear them play their jazz

Near midnight along the old lagoon

They call him King of the Mist

And so they wrote him this tune…..

Source: Diana Williamson, 2020

Visit Diana Williamson’s website

The Launch of the Griffin by Thomas D’Arcy McGee

Within Cayuga’s forest shade
The stocks were set—the keel was laid—
Wet with the nightly forest dew,
The frame of that first vessel grew.
Strange was the sight upon the brim
Of the swift river, even to him
‡‡The builder of the bark;
To see its artificial lines
Festoon’d with summer’s sudden vines,
‡‡Another New World’s ark.

II.

As rounds to ripeness manhood’s schemes
Out of youth’s fond, disjointed dreams,
So ripen’d in her kindred wood
That traveller of the untried flood.
And often as the evening sun
Gleam’d on the group, their labor done—
‡‡The Indian prowling out of sight
‡‡Of corded friar and belted knight—
And smiled upon them as they smiled,
The builders on the bark—their child!

III.

The hour has come: upon the stocks
The masted hull already rocks—
The mallet in the master’s hand
Is poised to launch her from the land.
Beside him, partner of his quest
For the great river of the West,
Stands the adventurous Recollet
Whose page records that anxions day.
To him the master would defer
The final act—he will not bear
That any else than him who plann’d,
Should launch “the Griffin” from the land.
In courteous conflict they contend,
The knight and priest, as friend with friend—
‡‡In that strange savage scene
The swift blue river glides before,
And still Niagara’s awful roar
‡‡Booms through the vistas green.

IV.

And now the mallet falls, stroke—stroke—
On prop of pine and wedge of oak
‡‡The vessel feels her way;
The quick mechanics leap aside
As, rushing downward to the tide,
‡‡She dashes them with spray.
The ready, warp arrests her course,
And holds her for a while perforce,
While on her deck the merry crew
Man every rope, loose every clew,
‡‡And spread her canvas free.
Away! ’tis done! the Griffin floats,
First of Lake Erie’s winged boats—
‡‡Her flag, the Fleur-de-lis.

Gun after gun proclaims the hour,
As nature yields to human power;
And now upon the deeper calm
The Indian hears the holy psalm—
Laudamus to the Lord of Hosts!
Whose name unknown on all their coasts,
The inmost wilderness shall know,
Wafted upon yon wings of snow
That, sinking in the waters blue,
Seem but some lake-bird lost to view.

VI.

In old romance and fairy lays
Its wondrous part the Griffin plays—
Grimly it guards the gloomy gate
Seal’d by the strong behest of Fate—
Or, spreading its portentous wings,
Wafts Virgil to the Court of Kings;
And unto scenes as wondrous shall
Thy Griffin bear thee, brave La Salle!
Thy winged steed shall stall where grows
On Michigan the sweet wild rose;
Lost in the mazes of St. Clair,
Shall give thee hope amid despair,
And bear thee past those isles of dread
The Huron peoples with the dead,
Where foot of savage never trod
Within the precinct of his god;
And it may be thy lot to trace
The footprints of the unknown race
‘Graved on Superior’s iron shore,
Which knows their very name no more
Through scenes so vast and wondrous shall
Thy Griffin bear thee, brave La Salle—
True Wizard of the Wild! whose art,
An eye of power, a knightly heart,
A patient purpose silence-nursed,
A high, enduring, saintly trust—
Are mighty spells—we honor these,
Columbus of the inland seas!

Source: Thomas D’Arcy McGee. The Poems of Thomas D’Arcy McGee. London: D. & J. Sadlier, 1870

Note: The Griffin was originally known as Le Griffon. It was built at Cayuga Creek, just south of Niagara Falls, New York.

The Burning of the Caroline by Susanna Moodie

Moodie

A sound is on the midnight deep—
‡‡The voice of waters vast;
And onward, with resistless sweep,
‡‡The torrent rushes past—
In frantic chase, wave after wave,
The crowding surges press, and rave
‡‡Their mingled might to cast
Adown Niagara‘s giant steep;
The fretted billows foaming leap
‡‡With wild tumultuous roar;
The clashing din ascends on high,
In deaf’ning thunders to the sky,
‡‡And shakes the rocky shore.

Hark! what strange sounds arise—
‡‡‘Tis not stern Nature’s voice—
In mingled chorus to the skies!
‡‡The waters in their depth rejoice.
Hark! on the midnight air
‡‡A frantic cry uprose;
The yell of fierce despair,
‡‡The shout of mortal foes;
And mark yon sudden glare,
‡‡Whose red, portentous gleam
‡‡Flashes on rock and stream
With strange, unearthly light;
‡‡What passing meteor’s beam
Lays bare the brow of night?

From yonder murky shore
‡‡What demon vessel glides,
‡‡Stemming the unstemm’d tides,
Where maddening breakers roar
‡‡In hostile surges round her path,
Or hiss, recoiling from her prow,
‡‡That reeling, staggers to their wrath;
While distant shores return the glow
‡‡That brightens from her burning frame,
And all above—around—below—
‡‡Is wrapt in ruddy flame?

Sail on!—sail on!—No mortal hand
‡‡Directs that vessel’s blazing course;
The vengeance of an injured land
‡‡Impels her with resistless force
‘Midst breaking wave and fiery gleam,
‡‡O’er-canopied with clouds of smoke;
Midway she stems the raging stream,
‡‡And feels the rapids’ thundering stroke;
Now buried deep, now whirl’d on high,
‡‡She struggles with her awful doom,—
With frantic speed now hurries by
‡‡To find a watery tomb.

Lo, poised upon the topmost surge,
‡‡She shudders o’er the dark abyss;
The foaming waters round her hiss
‡‡And hoarse waves ring her funeral dirge;
The chafing billows round her close;
‡‡But ere her burning planks are riven,
Shoots up one ruddy spout of fire,—
‡‡Her last farewell to earth and heaven.
Down, down to endless night she goes!
‡‡So may the traitor’s hope expire,
So perish all our country’s foes!

Destruction’s blazing star
‡‡Has vanish’d from our sight;
The thunderbolt of war
‡‡Is quench’d in endless night;
Nor sight, nor sound of fear
Startles the listening ear;
‡‡Naught but the torrent’s roar,
The dull, deep, heavy sound,
From out the dark profound,
‡‡Echoes from shore to shore.
Where late the cry of blood
‡‡Rang on the midnight air,
The mournful lapsing of the flood,
The wild winds in the lonely wood,
‡‡Claim sole dominion there.

To thee, high-hearted Drew!
‡‡And thy victorious band
Of heroes tried and true
A nation’s thanks are due.
‡‡Defender of an injured land!
Well hast thou taught the dastard foe
‡‡That British honour never yields
To democratic influence, low,
‡‡The glory of a thousand fields.

Justice to traitors, long delay’d,
‡‡This night was boldly dealt by thee;
The debt of vengeance thou hast paid,
‡‡And may the deed immortal be.
Thy outraged country shall bestow
‡‡A lasting monument of fame,
The highest meed of praise below—
‡‡A British patriot’s deathless name!

Source: Susanna Moodie. Roughing it in the Bush; or, Life in Canada. vol. II. London: Richard Bentley, 1852.

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

Blondin by Walter de la Mare

With clinging dainty catlike tread,
His pole in balance, hand to hand,
And, softly smiling, into space
He ventures on that threadlike strand.

Above him is the enormous sky,
Beneath, a frenzied torrent roars,
Surging where massed Niagara
Its snow-foamed arc of water pours:

But he, with eye serene as his
Who sits in daydream by the fire,
His every sinew, bone and nerve
Obedient to his least desire,

Treads softly on, with light-drawn breath,
Each inch-long toe, precisely pat,
In inward trust, past wit to probe—
This death-defying acrobat! …

Like some old Saint on his old rope-bridge,
Between another world and this,
Dead-calm ‘mid inward vortices,
Where little else but danger is.

Source: De la Mare, Walter. Collected Poems. London: Faber & Faber, 1979

Blondin was first published in De la Mare, Walter. Inward Companion. London: Faber and Faber, 1950.

Blondin crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope in 1859 and 1860.

Category: Niagara History & Folklore

The Battle of Queenston Heights by Lieut.-Col. J. R. Wilkinson

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King of the Mist by Diana Williamson

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The Launch of the Griffin by Thomas D’Arcy McGee

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The Burning of the Caroline by Susanna Moodie

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Blondin by Walter de la Mare

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