I
NIAGARA, how charms thy name
Resounding from thy high walled sheer!
How sweet thy water's far acclaim
That bursts upon my pricking ear!
How beams my eye with kindling flame
As to thy presence I draw near,
Where beautied grandure's falling swell
Weaves still time's awful, mystic spell!
I gaze at thee from nearest shore,
Close by the impending brink,
In wonder at thy fearful pour
Of waters, til, amazèd more
Than I can tell or think,
I only see thy mist's fine shower
That wafts upon these walls,
And vision dim that mighty Power,
The Great Spirit of the Falls.
II
But lo ! up stream, in fitful dream,
The rolling, rumbling rapids roar,
And toss and tilt and turn and teem,
And gurgle in their cascades' gleam
From isle to isle and isle to shore;
And oft repeat the dazzling feat,
Display their leaping wonders more,
Rush round the rocks with flaring locks,
Lead as bellweathers do their flocks,
While through their tree-trimmed way they pour,
These bounding waters, fleet, more fleet,
To gather in one onward rush
Adown their troubled, rocky bed,
And struggle, straggle, gurgle, gush,
To follow where their leaders led;
But panting now for breath,
They stagger to the edge
Of overhanging ledge,
Fearing the plunge beneath;
When forth in foam their fellows come,
Cheering and jeering the faltering and fearing,
Till onto the precipice they rush with a roar,
Exulting and leaping, as comrades before;
Yet staring, stumbling, crashing, crumbling,
As host with host o'erpowering,
Each glistening wight of air commingled,
They fall in gulf devouring;
Or, flaring, flashing, darting, dashing,
To break as gleaming snow,
While splitting, splashing, gnawing, gnashing
Upon the rocks below;
Whence o'er the heights their spirits towering,
Sweeping, swaying, rising, lowering,
Rejoin the ceaseless flow,
That with recurring, falling shock,
Born on the wind's bluff blast,
Wears e'er amain the shelving rock,
And undermines aghast.
There as by mighty hand,
A cavern forms, carved by the storms
Of vexed spray's pelting wave;
And in that rocky cave
Rough columns stand with altar grand;
While fittingly conforms
The spray-worn dome and bowlder pave,
Round which reëcho e'er a stave
Of wailing wind's weird band;
And there before the cavern door,
Attended with intoning roar,
E'er falls the Bridal Veil
And sweeps the filmy rail,
Which now through Bridal Hall are fanned,
Now screen that Wind's Cave from the land.
Continue reading "Niagara by Arthur William Fisher"→
Roar, raging torrent! and thou, mighty river,
Pour thy white foam on the valley below;
Frown, ye dark mountains! and shadow for ever
The deep rocky bed where the wild rapids flow.
The green sunny glade, and the smooth flowing fountain,
Brighten the home of the coward and slave;
The flood and the forest, the rock and the mountain,
Rear on their bosoms the free and the brave.
II.
Nurslings of nature, I mark your bold bearing,
Pride in each aspect and strength in each form,
Hearts of warm impulse, and souls of high daring,
Born in the battle and rear’d in the storm.
The red levin flash and the thunder’s dread rattle,
The rock-riven wave and the war trumpet’s breath,
The din of the tempest, the yell of the battle,
Nerve your steeled bosoms to danger and death.
III.
High on the brow of the Alps’ snowy towers
The mountain Swiss measures his rock-breasted moors,
O’er his lone cottage the avalanche lowers,
Round its rude portal the spring-torrent pours.
Sweet is his sleep amid peril and danger,
Warm is his greeting to kindred and friends,
Open his hand to the poor and the stranger,
Stern on his foeman his sabre descends.
IV.
Lo! where the tempest the dark waters sunder
Slumbers the sailor boy, reckless and brave,
Warm’d by the lighting and lulled by the thunder,
Fann’d by the whirlwind and rock’d on the wave;
Wildly the winter wind howls round his pillow,
Cold on his bosom the spray showers fall;
Creaks the strained mast at the rush of the billow,
Peaceful he slumbers, regardless of all.
V.
Mark how the cheek of the warrior flushes,
As the battle drum beats and the war torches glare;
Like a blast of the north to the onset he rushes,
And his wide-waving falchion gleams brightly in air.
Around him the death-shot of foemen are flying,
At his feet friends and comrades are yielding their breath;
He strikes to the groans of the wounded and dying,
But the war cry he strikes with is, ‘conquest or death!’
VI.
Then pour thy broad wave like a flood from the heavens,
Each son that thou rearest, in the battle’s wild shock,
When the death-speaking note of the trumpet is given,
Will charge like thy torrent or stand like thy rock.
Let his roof be the cloud and the rock be his pillow,
Let him stride the rough mountain, or toss on the foam,
He will strike fast and well on the field or the billow,
In triumph and glory, for God and his home!
Source: Joseph Rodman Drake The Culprit Fay, and Other Poems, New York: George Dearborn, 1836
In his book Papers and proceedings of the Drake Memorial Celebration, May 29, 1915 : together with a bibliography of the writings of Dr. Joseph Rodman Drake by Victor Hugo Paltsits he mentions that a manuscript notebook dated 1817 and entitled Trifles in Rhyme written by Joseph Rodman Drake includes the poem Niagara.
In 1835, H. Clinch published the two-stanza poem Niagara which is almost identical to the first and last (6th) stanzas of this poem.
Millions of gallons
of surging water,
unstopping, relentless,
swirling through the gorges,
hurdling over the rocks,
furiously charging, headlong,
like a mighty herd of buffalo
racing madly toward a precipice,
but on a scale
and with an intensity
that overwhelms the observer,
reducing one to a mere spectator,
humbled by the sound and the fury
of nature’s most enduring
exhibition of unbridled power
at a place called …
Niagara Falls
Listen to Surging Water by Phillip W. Weiss. Read by Oliver Porteus
Copyright (c) 2004 Phillip W. Weiss
Source: The author, 2004.
