On thundering feet you take the dread abyss,
Shaking the stolid earth around, below,
Where puny mortals gaze but may not know
The cosmic surge of elemental bliss,
The soaring passion of the lethal kiss
That hides within your swift arterial flow.
Most prodigal of waters, to bestow
So rich inheritance on man as this.
Niagara, the mighty, rainbow-spanned,
Majestic, terrible your potency!
What aeons since He cupped you in His hand
Who gave His space its wheeling argosy,
And bade you ride this rampart of our land
Companionless, alone, eternally!
Source: V.B. Rhodenizer, (ed.) Canadian Poetry Magazine vol. 22, no. 3, Spring 1959.
Majestic moves the mighty stream and slow,
Till from that false calm’s semblance, suddenly,
Wild and with echoes shaking earth and sky,
The huge tide plunges in the abyss below,
— It is the cataract! from whose thunderous ire
The wild birds flee in terror far away —
From that dread gulf when with her scarf of fire
The rainbow sits above the torrent’s sway!
Earth quakes, for sudden that vast arching dome
Of green is changed to hills of snow-white foam,
That seethe and boil and bound in tameless pride.
Yet this Thy work, O God, Thy law fulfils,
And while it shakes the everlasting hills,
It spares the straw that floats upon its tide.
Source: This poem by Mulvany was published in Rose-Belford’s Canadian Monthly and National Review, July 1881, vol. 7, no. 1. Toronto: Rose-Belford Publishing Co., 1881. p. 26
Also in the anthology Niagara Mornings by Andrew C. Porteus, 2016.
Gravestone of Robert Randall, Drummond Hill Cemetery, Niagara Falls, Ontario. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
The brooding voice of spring is in the air,
The mighty winds are hushed, are very still;
Within a burial ground I wind my way —
A sunny place upon a sunny hill.
I fain would read a legend here and there,
But Time has passed with his erasing hand;
And, on the battered stones that head these graves,
The half-intelligible letters stand.
The peace of God, which no man understands,
Beams kindly down upon the greening sod,
And, underneath, where sacred ashes lie
Of those who‘ve gone before to meet their God.
Full many an unknown spirit lies at peace
With heart against the earth‘s warm heart close-pressed:
Their dust, as ashes of the rose that lie,
Its perfume gone, fallen to earth‘s soft breast.
The summer sky is kind to all alike,
And over all the skies are fair and clear;
And, in the solemn stillness of this hour,
It seems as if I were intruding here.
But no resentment these poor ashes feel,
For God has called their souls from here below;
And in this hour He speaks to my lone soul —
He seems to call and I could wish ‘twere so.
But God has measured out my length of days,
And His sweet will is all in all to me.
O Father, guide my thoughts, my life, my soul,
To thy great glory, till Thou callest me!
Source: Kevin McCabe, ed. The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines, Ont. : Blarney Stone Books, 1999.
Originally published: Ada Elizabeth Fuller. Sunshine and Shadow. Niagara Falls, 1919.
Within a temple‘s towering walls I stand ̶
A temple vast; the heaven is its dome.
No corniced crag was hewn by human hand
Nor by it wrought the tracery of foam;
The inlaid floor of emerald and pearl
Heaves at the hidden organ‘s thunderous peal,
While round and up the clouds of incense curl,
Shrouding the chancel where the billows kneel.
Ah! bow your heads. It is a fitting place
For solemn thought, for deep and earnest prayer;
For here the finger of our God I trace,
Beneath, above, around me, everywhere;
He hollowed out this grand and mighty nave,
And robed his altar with the ocean wave!
