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Niagara, an Allegory by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
Image courtesy of The Library of Congress
An old grey man on a mountain lived,
…He had daughters four and one,
And a tall bright lodge of the betula bark
…That glittered in the sun.
He lived on the very highest top,
…For he was a hunter free,
Where he could spy on the clearest day,
…Gleams of the distant sea.
Come out—come out ! cried the youngest one,
…Let us off to look at the sea,
And out they ran in their gayest robes,
…And skipped and ran with glee.
Come Su, come Mi, come Hu, come Sa,
…Cried laughing little Er,
Let us go to yonder broad blue deep,
…Where the breakers foam and roar.
And on they scampered by valley and wood,
…By earth and air and sky,
Till they came to a steep where the bare rocks stood,
…In a precipice mountain high.
Inya ! cried Er, here’s a dreadful leap,
…But we are gone so far,
That if we flinch and return in fear,
…Nos , he will cry ha ! ha !
Now each was clad in a vesture light,
…That floated far behind,
With sandals of frozen water drops,
…And wings of painted wind.
And down they plunged with a merry skip
…Like birds that skim the plain ;
And hey ! they cried, let us up and try
…And down the steep again.
And up and down the daughters skipped,
…Like girls on a holiday,
And laughed outright, at the sport and foam
…They called Niagara.
If ye would see a sight so rare,
…Where nature’s in her glee,
Go, view the spot in the wide wild west,
…The land of the brave and free.
But mark—their shapes are only seen
…In fancy’s deepest play,
But she plainly shews their wings and feet
…In the dancing sunny spray.
Source: Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.The Indian in His Wigwam, or, Characteristics of the Red Race. Buffalo: Derby & Hewson, 1848.
Also published in his The American Indians, Their History, Condition and Prospects. Buffalo: George H. Derby & Co., 1851
Also published in his Western Scenes and Reminiscences, Auburn: Derby & Miller 1853
Also published in Rhine, Alice Hyneman. Niagara Park illustrated : original and selected, descriptions, poems and adventures. New York: Niagara Pub. Co., 1885; New York: William T. Hunter, 1888. Rhine attributes the poem to Mrs. Schoolcraft.
The Poetical Review: a Brief Notice of Canadian Poets and Poetry by A.C. Stewart
[excerpt, p. 16-17]
From his Le Chien d’or
Where wild Niagara hurls his torrents down
A poet dwells who wears a sanguine crown ;
There Kirby with his strong and graphic pen
Shall rouse the warring legions up again : —
English and French, and Redmen, marshalled are,
And shake the plains, beneath the shock of war,
Yet not the reeking charge and bloody fray,
The lingering siege, or the victorious day,
Alone are his, he can at list digress
To plant the thorn that symbol of distress
An spin his little yarn of love betrayed
The faithful wife and the seducing maid : —
Ah ! fated concubine thy wicked hand
Is doomed to slay the lover “Bois-le-Grand”
Vain thy caresses, in his mortal pain,
He knows thee not but calls his chatelaine,
Yet faithful still like Conrad’s Kaled thou
Watched to the last and sharest his glory now.
Such is the story told in time and rhyme
That makes ridiculous this antique crime ;
Kirby no more thy leisure hours abuse
Collect thy customs but tempt not the muse.
Note by A.C. Stewart: Mr. Kirby is a bright star in William Douw’s Heaven, he will live longer probably, than Lighthall himself, Government official, author of “Canadian Idylls,” writer of some very good verse, and much rubbish. [William Douw Lighthall was a Canadian poet and philosopher]
Source: A.C. Stewart. The Poetical Review: a Brief Notice of Canadian Poets and Poetry. Toronto: J. Anderson, Printer, 1896. See the complete poem here
The “little yarn of love betrayed” is the poem Spina Christi, which can be viewed here
Stewart (1867-1944) came to Canada from Ireland, and became a tunnel and bridge contractor in Fort William, Ontario.
Kirby (1817-1906) came to Canada from Yorkshire, settled in present day Niagara-on-the-Lake, was a customs collector and author, and publisher of the Niagara Mail newspaper. Read more about him here
Dry Run / 1848 by Colene Ruch
Photograph by George Barker
Image Courtesy of the Library of Congress
One day in March
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡a century or so ago
Niagara Falls couldn’t or wouldn’t
Why there was no flow
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡was a puzzle.
Why didn’t the water show?
Beached creatures needed to know.
The day before it fell pell-mell.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Now, nothing gushing, dry as…
Well, when Niagara Falls fails
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡fears assail faces.
Something’s very wrong in high places
when the mighty Falls just stops its drops.
What befell the Falls,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡caused the pause?
People walked the riverbed,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡dismayed, began to pray.
Boaters removed crags that had been snags.
Finally word from Buffalo, hours away,
conveyed that storm winds chunked ice up
and that ice jam became an ice dam,
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡blocking Niagara River to a sliver.
For forty hours no Falls at all, still it was, till
the dam broke, bursting waters spoke
from a rumble to a thundering roar,
as Niagara’s breadth unfurled
its Falls in power once more
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡to a grateful lark-winged world.
Source: Colene Ruch, 2021
© Colene Ruch, 2021
wind and light by Andrea Moorhead
there is nothing at Niagara
acid burns along the river
the strawberries bloom under the night
when leaves turn towards the sun
and the day star shoots across the water,
there is nothing at Niagara
and my hands are empty
neither straw nor cornflower
not the jet black of crow and raven
the grounds are empty at Niagara
and there is only wind and the soft light pattern
of mist on skin.
Source: Abraxas no. 42/43, 1997
Visit Andrea Moorhead’s Goodreads page for some of her books in French and English, including her book Niagara
About Andrea Moorhead:
I continue to publish poetry in French and consider this work to be essential. My French work is quite different in tone and direction from my English work; it represents, perhaps, the natural extension of my concerns with the natural world and its degradation from multiple causes. I also continue to work with photography, and think of it as an overlapping aspect of my exploration of abstraction and tangential realities.
View another of Moorhead ‘s poems, Niagara weeps, on this website