Category: Religious poetry

Eternal – Beautiful – Serene – Sublime by C. W. Rowland

rowland
Niagara Falls by Andrew Porteus

Eternal — prototype of God!
When first the morning stars did sing,
And the all-glorious sun was placed on high;
How didst thou rear thy awful crest
At His own bidding, and thy thunders spoke
Of the creation born — and ever onward
Through successive ages still is thy impetuous course,
Bespeaking praise to Him, thy great Creator:
Lo, the poor Indian doth bend before thee —
And in thy presence feels that God is nigh!
And the Great Spirit near him to protect:
All recognize in thee — power, greatness — vastness!

Beautiful, most beautiful, whether
In thy murmuring music
Or thy reverberating, echoing thunders,
And thy feathery spray, and rainbows,
Bespeaking hope and faith;
And as thou dashest o’er the ledge,
Behold the gorgeous emerald green,
Woven through with silvery thread —
And then thy milky flood below,
And eddies and o’erhanging rocks,
Call forth the exclamation, “beautiful.”

Serene — thou art and in thy presence
We do feel sweet peace to steal
O’er us, and that the soul all lost
To earth and all around, doth wing
Its thoughts to other scenes,
And we do dwell afar ‘mong those
Long lost and dwellers in a better land.
The mind is lulled to a repose
And we feel
Ready to lean on God and trust in Him.

Sublime — surpassing far all else
Of thy own nature — thou art monarch
Over all and doth feel thy power —
Who shall stop thy way,
Or say unto thy floods, flow not?
Thou wouldst dash aside the net
Woven by vain man to hold thee,
And rend them as the brittle reed.
I have paid my tribute to thee,
And now I will repose — thou hast been
To me a lesson deep and ineffaccable —
And I leave this spot, I trust, a better man.

Philadelphia, August 2, 1847.

Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848

This link takes you to the scanned version of  the 1855 version of Table Rock Album from the Hathi Trust

See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Album on this site.

Also in the anthology Niagara Mornings by Andrew C. Porteus, 2016.

Niagara by Sarah Pratt

niagara sarah pratt

niagara sarah pratt
Portage Around the Falls of Niagara at Table Rock, by George Catlin, 1847/1848

Niagara, I love to hear thy voice,
And while I look on thy array of waters
Careering onward with resistless force,
And showing forth all the might and power of Him
Who ruleth over all — ’tis then my soul
Is filled with awe, and I can realize
That God is here, that he is present now.
Oh! let a song of praise ascend to Him
Who gives us all things richly to enjoy,
And while we gaze upon this glorious scene,
Let us remember thou dost shadow forth
The glory of Omnipotence.
Awe-struck we gaze on these o’erhanging rocks,
And mark thy waters as they onward flow,
And hear, Niagara! thy unceasing roar.
We watch the clouds of spray as they ascend,
And view the bright inimitable green,
Too dazzling to the eye, and then we feel
That scenes like these, stupendous and sublime,
Must lose their greatness when compared with Him
Whose presence fills the immensity; then while ’tis ours
To gaze upon His works, may we be led
To worship and adore; to live for Him,
That when earth’s scenes shall fail before our eyes,
We may behold more glorious worlds above,
And through the sacrifice of Him who gave
His life for fallen man, dwell ever more
Where love, and joy, and peace forever reign.

New York, August 12, 1847.

Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848

This link takes you to the scanned version of  the 1855 version of Table Rock Album from the Hathi Trust

See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Album on this site.

niagara sarah pratt

Niagara Falls by John Robert Colombo

(a found poem from the unpublished writings of Bishop John Strachan)

sublime niagara falls
Bishop John Strachan

My brother, after some hesitation,
ventured down the precipice;
and, having reached the bed
of the river below,
we were well rewarded.
It was now
that my expectations were realized:
the height of the rock —
the thundering of the Fall —
the spray forming in rain-bows —
the vast volume of water
rolling over the impending precipice,
produced a sensation overpoweringly
sublime.

 

Source: Colombo, John Robert; and Strachan, John. John Toronto: New Poems by Dr. Strachan Found by John Robert Colombo. [Ottawa] : Oberon Press, 1969.

From the dust jacket: The poems are taken verbatim from Strachan’s uncollected writings. They are poems by virtue of the special character of their eloquence. They are new in that they speak with fresh urgency and directness to a new age.

Click here to see a biography of Bishop Strachan from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Niagara by Willis Gaylord Clark

sublime niagara falls
Willis Gaylord Clark By John Sartain. Image from Hathi Trust

 

 

 

Here speaks the voice of God — let man be dumb,
Nor with his vain aspirings hither come.
That voice impels the hollow-sounding floods,
And like a presence fills the distant woods.
These groaning rocks the Almighty’s finger piled;
For ages here his painted bow has smiled,
Mocking the changes and the chance of time —
Eternal, beautiful, serene, sublime!

Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848

Also Published in the Albany Evening Journal, July 12, 1836, with the note “The following impromtu was inscribed on the Travellers’ Register at Niagara Falls, a few days ago, by the editor of the Philadelphia Gazette.” Selections from The Travellers’ Register were published as the Table Rock Album.

Also published in: Myron T. Pritchard, comp.  Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1901.

Also published in:  Johnson, Richard L. (ed).  Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898.

Also published in: Holley, George W., ed.  The Falls of Niagara.  Baltimore: A.C. Armstrong & Son, 1883

Niagara by Father James B. Dollard

Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church

Incessantly thy waters thus have rolled
    Through the dim aeons of unmeasured Time,
    While God was fashioning His work sublime,
Or ere His sulphurous forges could grow cold!
When Egypt loved Osiris and retold
    His charmed birth from out Nilotic slime,
    When Chaldea read the stars, and Homer's rhyme
Was yet undreamt -- Niagara thundered bold.

So night and day throughout coverging years
    Hoarse voices rose above the hissing spray
        Scaring the lonely Indian on the shore!
These bellowing chasms harbored nameless fears --
    Demons and dragons in contorted play
        Lashing the frightened waters evermore!

Source: Rev. James B. Dollard. Poems. Toronto: The Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada, 1910.

About Father Dollard