Heart-Shaped Jacuzzi in a Suite at the America’s Best Inn on Lundy’s Lane . Photo by Alina Rashid, July 13, 2005 Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
The same old souvenirs
still amuse us — pennants,
Indian wood carvings,
and the aphrodisiac cocktails
whose nectar we spill
on pillows like some happy couple.
We spent our sleepless nights
rehearsing melodramas (I remember
your fondness for Chopin)
while the monotonous aquatic
thunder numbed our ears
and the braille of stars felt soft.
In a lofty luxurious suite
overlooking
the picture postcard cataracts
we tickled the skin of dreams
and fevered our love
with hors d’oeuvres.
At night the neon loins
of this city unveil brides galore.
O Rainbow Bridge,
believe me when I say
our honeymoon was nothing more
than breakfast in bed.
Source: Len Gasparini. Cutty Sark: Poems. Quarry Press, 1970. This poem also appeared in New American and Canadian Poetry edited by John Gill, 1971
This poem was not received favourably by all readers. In the Cincinnati Mirror a review was published by “G,” presumably the editor William Davis Gallagher. The tone of this review is set in the first sentence: “Upon what principle this production is called a poem, we have not been able to determine” and grudgingly continues “It is true, that it contains occasional good similes, and is not destitute of poetic imagery; and moreover, has one quality of the sublime—being sometimes eminently obscure.”
I’ve added this review in the pictures below, and also added it to this poem’s page on the website (link above).
I invite you to take some time, read the poem and then the review, and decide if G was perhaps a little harsh or right on.
Part of Niagara Falls on the U.S. side of the river, seen from the Canada side Drawn June 1806 by D. Wadsworth, from nature Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Roar, raging torrent—and thou mighty river
Dash thy white waves on the valley below ;
Frown, ye dark mountains, and shadow for ever
The deep rocky bed where the rude rapids flow.
The green sunny glade and the smooth flowing fountains,
Brighten the home of the coward and slave,
The flood and the forest, the rock and the mountain,
Rear on their bosom the free and the brave.
While pours thy broad wave like a torrent from heaven,
Each son thou shalt rear in the battle’s wild shock,
When the death speaking blast of the trumpet is given,
Shall charge like thy waters, or stand like thy rocks ;
Though his roof be the clouds, and the ground be his pillow—
Though he stride the rough mountain or toss on the foam,
He will strike fast and well on the field or the billow,
In triumph Columbia !—for God and his home.
Source: The Albion. June 6, 1835. Signed H. Clinch, Esq.
This poem is almost identical to the first and last (6th) stanzas of the poem Niagara by Joseph Rodman Drake
Also published with minor changes in: The Southern Warbler: A New Collection. Charleston: Babcock & Co., 1845 and in Songs of Ireland and Other Lands. New York: D. & J. Sadlier, 1847
Distant View Of Niagara Falls by Thomas Cole, 1830 Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Softly the light in these umbrageous realms
Falls on the path, and plays upon the leaf —
Softly the breeze now whispering steals between
The thousand pillars of the quiet wood —
And we with gentle musings, and fond thoughts
Untroubled, free, pursue our pleasant way —
What sound is that careering on the wings
Of stormy blasts, so mightily and fills
The lofty arches of the forest wide ?
Is it the clamor of impetuous winds
That strive for egress from some rock-bound cave ?
Or is an earthquake waking from its wrath
And from the high unstable mountain tops
Hurling the ponderous and rebounding rocks ?
No! tis Niagara shouts from the abyss
Where headlong he has cast him in his might !
And rocks, and woods, and the astounded air,
And earth’s deep center tremble as with fear —
Approach and view the wonder of a world
See ! when the waters of a hundred lakes
An unheaped multitude tumultuous leap
O’er the projecting crags, into the gulf —
Thence the thick mist perpetual ascends,
In cloudy piles into the sky and hides,
The quivering torment of the floods below —
Like steam emitted from some cauldron vast
Vexed by furious and unquenching fires —
Thou consummation of the earth’s sublime !
Thy course nor time, nor tide, nor change hath stemmed !
Thy voice hath risen above the tempest’s roar
Year after year till countless they are grown —
Seasons have looked upon thee and have died —
Ages have vanish’d and the earth grown old —
Man who hath moved mountains, bound the sea,
Awe-struck recoils and works on thee no change
The earth hath much of beauty but the choice
Is garlanded around thine august brows —
Yon, flaky foam is white as alpine snow —
Yon gushing emerald clear as ocean’s depths —
The bow of promise sits on sable clouds ;
But lo ! a far excelling iris girds
The dazzling splendour of thy snowy breast—
Ages untold thy voice broke forth unheard ;
But by the shrinking wolf, or the tim’rous deer
Or wandering savage of the echoing wild —
Until an enterprise sublime unbarred
The mighty portals of the golden west
And midst its teeming fulness thou wast found
Majestic in the wilderness enthroned —
Written at the Falls May, 1829
Thomas Cole visited Niagara for the first time just before his departure to England in June 1829.
Source: Thomas Cole. Thomas Cole’s Poetry. comp. & ed. by Marshall B. Tymn. York, PA : Liberty Cap Books, 1972.
Source: Chester E. Pond. The Falls of Niagara Our School of Sublimity. Topeka, Kansas, 1888. Cover title: The Sublime Niagara of Our World.
N.B. This poem comes after a series of lessons by Pond about Niagara Falls, as “Thoughtful persons visit the Falls not so much for temporary pleasure as for permanent soul culture. Not simply to be able to say, “I have seen the great Niagara,” but to become better acquainted with Niagara’s great Creator.
