ALL hail to thee, Niagara !   Monarch thou,
Before whose echoing thunders, every sound
Shrinks tearfully away !     The pilgrim heart
Bowing in deepest homage at thy shrine,
Trembles, and sinks in fear !    The admiring eye,
Pressed by thy startling grandeur, droops in tears :
And the frail lyre that would its sweetest strains
Invoke unto thy praise, alas ! grows dumb.
Bright as the stars ! thy mantle : and thy crown,
The circling bow wherewith He spans the heavens.
And thy cloud-shadowed feet, even stand as once
At Israel’s tent, thy glorious Maker’s stood :
Of whose great majesty and power sublime,
His hand hath formed thee evermore to speak !

---

Source: Wood. M. Elva.  Songs of the Noon and Night.  New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1866

Great God ! within Thy glorious temple, mute with awe
We stand and listen to the pealing hymn 
Of thine Omnipotence. In all this wide, wide world 
Where can earth’s children go to learn a grander lesson 
Of Thy Majesty ? What human tongues with burning 
Words of power can tell Thy glories and Thine awful might, 
Or stir the doubting heart of man, as this sublime 
Creation of Thy mind Divine ?   Here, fashioned by 
Thy mighty hand, Nature’s gigantic organ stands, 
And ceaselessly rolls forth terrific notes of praise. 
Here Thine established choir forever thunder forth. 
In grandly thrilling tones, a mystic song of 
Thine unfathomable, infinite power. Here Thou hast 
Placed Thy solid altar on the shores of Time, and from 
Thy very lips the overpowering strains of holy eloquence 
Burst forth.

Who can withstand the heavenly music of Thy voice ; 
Who can, with heart unstirred, behold the amazing 
Splendor of Thine earthly court ; who can gaze on this 
Matchless structure by Thy fingers wrought, and calmly say, 
There is no living God ?

…………………………….Here let the boasting and the 
Lofty come and feel their nothingness ; here let the 
Sophist bring his treacherous creed, and obtain from 
Jehovah’s book logic invincible.  Here let the stolid 
And unthinking come and start their sleeping 
Senses from the sluggish trance. Here let the yearning 
Spirit and aspiring come, and, climbing Nature’s ladder, 
Grasp the reaching hand of God.

………………………………………Here the weary-hearted 
May sweet comfort find when resting on the shining 
Banks ; life-giving draughts from beauty’s fountain 
They may quaff, and from the appalling depths and 
Awful rush of waters wild look up, where, ever arching 
O’er the temple’s misty veil, the radiant bow of promise 
Sheds its cheering rays. So shall the glorious emblem 
Of Thy mercy teach the sorrowing heart, that o’er each

Dread abyss of human woe, each fearful path, where 
Life’s fierce tempests beat, the golden promise of 
Thy love and pity hangs. Here let the heart be 
Humbled to the dust, and no vain thought of 
Mortal consequence intrude.

…………………………………Oh, if these forest sentinels 
That ages long have watched the glories of this sacred 
Shrine, still with emotion shake, and join their trembling 
Voices in the tremendous hymn, shall not weak 
Mortals lowly bend, and in the footsteps of their 
Father, God, a loving tribute cast — not with a craven 
Thought of human fear — at the overwhelming power of 
His arm, but holiest love and adoration give, 
Ever rejoicing with ecstatic joy that they are off-springs 
Of so glorious a sire.

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Source: Mary J. Wines. Infant Harper and Other Poems. Cambridge, Mass.: Hurd & Houghton, 1874, p. 193-195

I STOOD on the hanging cliff, and saw
…The river bend and fall
With the ocean’s deep and hollow roar,
…With a constant thunder call.

The polished emerald arch broke out
…In fleece as white as snow,
That flashed a moment in the sun,
…Then sank in chaos below.

I listened to Niagara’s voice,
…And heard the central fire,
Poised on earth’s axle, loose its chains
…And war its fierce desire.

The pewit’s plaintive silver note,
…The cricket’s autumn crone,
The whispering wind, and talking leaves,
…Were hushed in the master tone.

Within that horrible chasm, wide
…The caldron boiled in white
Confusion, chaos of seething foam,
…Obscure as blackest night.

Out of this gulf the river ran,
…So narrow still and deep,
My fancy saw it as a great
…Green serpent, slowly creep.

My frightened vision shrank from it,
…My feet turned back to fix
Themselves upon the solid earth,
…And fly this creeping Styx.

“Niagara, Niagara !
…The hand of God,” I cried,
“Alone could break thy stream in foam,
…And hurl thy rushing tide.

“His hand alone could bend thy peace
…Above, to headlong zest
Against the rocks, and down the gulf,
…To find below thy rest.”

“His hand alone could rend the rocks,
…And guide thy course to wide
Ontario, thence to the gray
…Old ocean’s boundless tide.”

“Earth’s mountains have their mystery,
…The seas their dreary waste
Of waters, sad as Sahara’s sands ;
…The clouds their stormy haste ;—”

“Among the mountains man exults,
…He fearless ploughs the waves,
Stamps on the sands, laughs at the winds
…From out his castle caves;—”

“But on thy banks he feels his pride
…And power are but a straw,
Before thy awful majesty,
…And thy resistless law.”

” Let Danube boast her ancient name,
…The Rhine her castle walls,
The Seine and Thames their cities’ pride—
…But on thy forehead falls”

“A crown of beauty and of power
…Above them all; before
Thy awful face the man is blind,
…And dumb amid thy roar.”

I wooed the green still earth again,
…There saw one wild rose spread
Its crimson in the morning air,
…Its perfume faintly shed ;—

Then reverently I plucked the rose,
…And from the sloping bank
I dropped the red leaves in white foam,
…And down the abyss they sank.

The Father of Floods, my peace offering
…Gave back to me again,
In bending his rainbow over the abyss,
…And in his snowy train.

Now evermore, as the years go by,
…Niagara’s flood and roar,
Will come to me with the tender grace
…Of summer seas on the shore.

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Source: I.D. Van Duzee. By the Atlantic: Later Poems. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1892, p. 247-250.

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