We sat beneath the wooden bridge ‡‡As in a sheltering tent, And watched the water’s emerald ridge ‡‡And marvelous white descent
The schoolboys, ruddy-cheeked and fair, ‡‡Stood round in lightsome mood,
Nor saw the awful presence there, — ‡‡The spirit of the flood.
And yet on one of them, thought I, ‡‡Some deeper influence stole
To touch the slumbering chords that lie ‡‡Even in childish soul.
And when, in later years, his ways ‡‡Beside these steeps shall be,
The wonder-joy his foot that stays ‡‡Shall seem half memory.
Oh, may some heavenly influence ‡‡Still to my soul be nigh
To blend the child’s unconscious sense ‡‡With manhood’s seeing eye!
Listen to Under the Bridge at Niagara read by Oliver Porteus
Written in 1857
Source: Samuel Longfellow. Hymns and Verses. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1894
Samuel Longfellow was the younger brother of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was a clergyman, a poet, and a hymn writer. After his brother died, Samuel published a 2 volume biography of him.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Have thou never seen, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When the orb of day ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Lightens with his sheen ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Dark Niagara, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡How his glories act ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On the foam, and show, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡O’er the cataract, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Heaven’s beauteous bow? She, who lately plumed for flight, seeking rest above,
Saw thus over Jordan’s tide, arched, the bow of love.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Hath, at eve, thine eye ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Watched the little billow ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rise and gleam and die, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On Atlantic’s pillow — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When it seemed to thee ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Sighing into rest, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Melting peacefully ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Into ocean’s breast? She, as kindly in repose, sighed away her breath,
Peacefully and gently thus, blended into death.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Saw’st thou, when, in light, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Sabbath glories rose? ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡She, a Sabbath bright, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Saw, yet not like those. ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Longed she then to go, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rest above, to spend? ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Yes! begun below, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rest that ne’er shall end.
Voices heard she, loved ones saw, sweetly from the sky
Beckoning to their holy home, wooing her to die.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡In the troublous hour, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡In life’s weary doom, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When disease hath power, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When appears the tomb — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Where’s the sovereign arm, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Strong and swift to save? ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡What can chase alarm, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡What adorn the grave? She could answer, HE was there, swift, the sufferer knew,
HE that through the grave had passed, strong to bear her through.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When Niagara ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Lifts his bow no more, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When have fled away ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Ocean and the shore, — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡She shall live again, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Where the mortal sigh ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Heaves not, and where pain, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Yea, and Death shall die. She, a child, a seraph now, leans on Jesus’ breast,
Oh, for wings! that we might be, sweet one! thus at rest.
Source: William B. Tappan. Poet’s Tribute; Poems of William B. Tappan. Boston: King, Crocker & Brewster, 1840
William Bingham Tappan, 1794-1849. From his Poet’s Tribute.
Niagara! — the poetry of God!
Whose numbers tell, in everlasting hymn,
Only of God! The morning stars that woke
Music along their courses, early caught
Its far off echoes, and in wild delight
Returned them, softened, round the universe.
Think not, think not, Earth’s triflers! that for you And garish Day, these melodies chime on.
When ye,diminished, lost, are known not, Night,
Night to the aweful anthem ever hearkens,
And ever with new joy. Oh, how sublime
The symphony, that, under the expanse
Of stars, peals on in unexhausted power:
Niagara! — and the sole listener, Night!
Source: William B. Tappan. Poet’s Tribute; Poems of William B. Tappan. Boston: King, Crocker & Brewster, 1840
I hear the thunderous thud, the muffled roar
I see the blinding, wheeling, smiting mists,
The greens, the grays, purples, and amethysts,
From Heaven’s wide palm thy frightened cataracts pour,
And I look up beneath them and adore.
Above me hang chain lightnings on the wrists
Of summer tempests. In the awesome lists
Of contests are the thunders and thy shore.
Beneath thy quivering riven cliff I lie
And gaze into the lightning and the sky
But I hear only thee and touch and see
A hand which undergirds immensity.
Thou speakest much, but speaketh most of him;
God, God, God walks on thy watery rim.
Source: Charles Mason Dow. Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls. Albany: State of New York, 1921. p 825
Originally published in Joseph Cook. Overtones: a Book of Verse. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1903
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)
