The first time it happened was on a family holiday when the parents piled the four of us into the back seat of our wood-panelled Plymouth station wagon, circa 1959.
Dan 10
moi 9
Deb 5
Dave 4
I hear ya, the 4 Ds, what were they thinking?
We piled in, we were piled on, we were on a camping trip from Ottawa to see the falls, the mythical falls!
A long day journey with moi pleading car sickness so I could sit up front and not stay squished in the back with the squabblers. I know, you’re wondering how can 4 kids be packed into the back seat of a station wagon: no problem: this trip was 20 years prior to that belt legislation. Plus, we had Heidi with us, a usually sweet dachshund, but cranky car companion. What were they thinking?
Am writing this in the throes of slouching towards 75, can’t remember anything much about the actual road trip. But we must’ve played horses and cemeteries. You get points for horses you see in the fields and you lose all your points if someone yells ‘cemetery’. This requires lots of I saw it first.
But I do remember the awestruckness of seeing the falls, feeling the mist, the magnetism of the cataract, the thunderous roar, the trembling…and the irresistible desire, more the irresistible need, to leap. To be one with the shoots, the flumes, the brume….
Even today, with small cascades, like Hogsback Falls on the Rideau River in Ottawa, I want to leap.
Anyone out there feel the same tug?
Perhaps Annie Edson Taylor did when she first saw Niagara Falls. To design and build a barrel, at age 63, and throw herself into the river and over the falls! We’re talking a drop of 160 feet, a flow rate of 85,000 cubic feet per second! Though she was the first person to survive this remarkable feat, she was not the risk taker you might take her for: she sent her cat over the precipice a few days earlier, and he survived.
You? Would you go over Niagara Falls for fame and fortune?
Donna-Lee Smith writes mostly from Montreal, but also from an off-the-grid cabin in the Laurentian hills north of the city, where bears raid the blueberries and wolves commune with the moon. At other times she writes from Gotland Island (Baltic Sea) where her grandchildren also eat blueberries and commune in Swedish.
The lights of a hundred cities are fed
by its midnight power.
Their wheels are moved by its thunder.
But they, too, have their hour.
The tale of the Indian lovers, a cry
from the years that are flown,
While the river of stars is rolling,
Rolling away to the darkness,
Abides with the power in the midnight,
where love may find its own.
She watched from the Huron tents, till
the first star shook in the air.
The sweet pine scented her fawn-skins,
and breathed from her braided hair.
Her crown was of milk-white blood-
root, because of the tryst she would
keep
Beyond the river of beauty
That drifted away in the
darkness,
Drawing the sunset thro' lilies, with
eyes like stars, to the deep.
He watched, like a tall young wood-
god, from the red pine that she
named;
But not for the peril behind him, where
the eyes of the Mohawks flamed.
Eagle-plumed he stood. But his heart
was hunting afar,
Where the river of longing whis-
pered
. . . And one swift shaft from
the darkness
Felled him, her name in his death-cry,
his eyes on the sunset star.
She stole from the river and listened.
The moon on her wet skin shone.
As a silver birch in the pine-wood, her
beauty flashed and was gone.
There was no wave in the forest. The
dark arms closed her round.
But the river of life went
flowing,
Flowing away to the darkness,
For her breast grew red with his
heart's blood, in a night where the
stars are drowned.
“Teach me, O my lover, as you taught
me of love in a day,
Teach me of death, and for ever, and
set my feet on the way
To the land of the happy shadows, the
land where you are flown.”
And the river of death went
weeping,
Weeping away to the dark-
ness.—
“Is the hunting good, my lover, so good
that you hunt alone?”
She rose to her feet like a shadow.
She sent a cry thro' the night,—
“Sa-sa-kuon,” the death-whoop, that
tells of triumph in fight.
It broke from the bell of her mouth
like the cry of a wounded bird,
But the river of agony swelled it
And swept it along to the
darkness,
And the Mohawks, couched in the
darkness, leapt to their feet as they
heard.
Close as the ring of the clouds that
menace the moon with death,
At once they circled her round. Her
bright breast panted for breath.
With only her own wild glory keeping
the wolves at bay,
While the river of parting whis-
pered,
Whispered away to the dark-
ness,
She looked in their eyes for a moment,
and strove for a word to say.
“Teach me, O my lover!"—She set her
foot on the dead.
She laughed on the painted faces with
their rings of yellow and red,—
“I thank you, wolves of the Mohawk,
for a woman's hands might fail.
—And the river of vengeance
chuckled,
Chuckled away to the dark-
ness,—
“But ye have killed where I hunted. I
have come to the end of my trail.
“I thank you, braves of the Mohawk,
who laid this thief at my feet.
He tore my heart out living, and tossed
it his dogs to eat.
Ye have taught him of death in a
moment, as he taught me of love in
a day.”
—And the river of passion
deepened,
Deepened and rushed to the
darkness.—
“And yet may a woman requite you,
and set your feet on the way.
“For the woman that spits in my face,
and the shaven heads that gibe,
This night shall a woman show you the
tents of the Huron tribe.
They are lodged in a deep valley.
With all things good it abounds.
Where the red-eyed, green-
mooned river
Glides like a snake to the dark-
ness,
I will show you a valley, Mohawks, like
the Happy Hunting Grounds.
“Follow!” They chuckled, and followed
like wolves to the glittering stream.
Shadows obeying a shadow, they
launched their canoes in a dream.
Alone, in the first, with the blood on
her breast, and her milk-white crown,
She stood. She smiled at them,
Follow!
Then urged her canoe to the
darkness,
And, silently flashing their paddles, the
Mohawks followed her down.
And now—as they slid thro' the pine-
woods with their peaks of midnight
blue,
She heard, in the broadening distance,
the deep sound that she knew,
A mutter of steady thunder that grew
as they glanced along;
But ever she glanced before them
And glanced away to the dark-
ness;–
And or ever they heard it rightly, she
raised her voice in a song:—
“The wind from the Isles of the Blessèd,
it blows across the foam.
It sings in the flowing maples of the
land that was my home.
Where the moose is a morning's hunt,
and the buffalo feeds from the
hand."—
And the river of mockery
broadened,
Broadened and rolled to the
darkness—
“And the green maize lifts its feathers,
and laughs the snow from the land.”
The river broadened and quickened.
There was nought but river and sky.
The shores were lost in the darkness.
She laughed and lifted a cry ;
“Follow me! Sa-sa-kuon!" Swifter
and swifter they swirled—
And the flood of their doom
went flying,
Flying away to the darkness,
“Follow me, follow me, Mohawks, ye
are shooting the edge of the world.”
They struggled like snakes to return.
Like straws they were whirled on
her track.
For the whole flood swooped to that
edge where the unplumbed night
dropt black,
The whole flood dropt to a thunder in
an unplumbed hell beneath,
And over the gulf of the thunder
A mountain of spray from the
darkness
Rose and stood in the heavens, like a
shrouded image of death.
She rushed like a star before them.
The moon on her glorying shone.
“Teach me, O my lover!”—her cry
flashed out and was gone.
A moment they battled behind her.
They lashed with their paddles and
lunged;
Then the Mohawks, turning
their faces
Like a blood-stained cloud to
the darkness,
Over the edge of Niagara swept together
and plunged.
And the lights of a hundred cities are
fed by the ancient power;
But a cry returns with the midnight;
for they, too, have their hour.
Teach me, O my lover, as you taught
me of love in a day,
—While the river of stars is rolling,
Rolling away to the darkness,
Teach me of death, and for ever, and
set my feet on the way!
Source: Noyes, Alfred (poem); Bawden, Clarence K. (music)The River of Stars: A Legend of Niagara. New York: G. Schirmer, 1917. [sheet music excerpt]
From Poetry Atlas:
Alfred Noyes was born in England and studied at Exeter College, Oxford (though he did not complete his degree). He spent long periods of his life in America, including the years of World War II. From 1914 to 1923 he was Professor of Modern English Literature at Princeton University in New Jersey. After the death of his first wife in 1926, he converted to Roman Catholicism. He later remarried and lived in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. He is buried on the Isle of Wight, at Frewshwater.
Push On, brave York Volunteers by John David Kelly, 1896. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Low-bending o’er the rugged bier,
The soldier drops the mournful tear
For life departed, valor driven
Fresh from the fields of death to Heaven.
But time shall fondly trace the name
Of Brock, upon the scrolls of Fame,
And those bright laurels, which should wave
Upon the brow of one so brave
Shall flourish vernal o’er his grave.
Source: McCabe, Kevin. (ed.) The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines: Blarney Stone Books, 1999. Previously published in F.B. Tupper (ed.) The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. 2nd ed. London, 1847. Poem is undated.
Composer and conductor Harris Loewen set this poem to music, with the score published by Renforth Music Publishing (New Brunswick) under the title Tears and Laurels. At the publisher’s request, the lyrics were slightly altered to create a version of the musical score that is non-specific, allowing it to function as an elegy for any war veteran. However, this recording was used on the publisher’s website. Many thanks to Prof. Loewen for permission to post this here.
This track, as well as At Niagara Falls and Peaceful Niagara,* appear on the CD Voices of Niagara 5: Beauty is Before Me, the last in a choral CD series featuring music writing by Niagara composers. I believe that all the recordings in the series may still be available through the Dept. of Music at Brock University. Incidentally, John Butler’s choral arrangement of Macdonnell on the Heights (Stan Rogers) also appears on this CD.
You will notice that, coincidentally, all three pieces are originally written for male voices (although scores for other voicings are now also published). These tracks were all recorded, here in Niagara, by the combined male singers of Avanti Chamber Singers and the Brock University choirs. So, this is “home-grown” material in every sense.
At Niagara Falls and Peaceful Niagara were commissioned by the Niagara Men’s Chorus and premiered separately in two concerts in 2008. On the Death of General Brock (my original title) was written to celebrate the bicentennial of the War of 1812 and premiered by a small male ensemble at the October 2012 Brock University Soiree, a fundraising event. The publication dates of the musical scores, by the way, do not reflect the date of composition.
*Peaceful Niagara is the name of the composition of Prof. Harris, using the poem Niagara in 1882 by John Macdonald.
Source: Niagara Powerhouse by Joseph Housley was first published in Nashville Review, Issue 39, December 2022.
Joseph Housley’s poems have appeared in The New York Quarterly, Nashville Review, The Shore, and Sixth Finch, as well as other journals and anthologies. He was selected for a residency at Hewnoaks and received an MFA in poetry from The New School. He lives in Savannah, Georgia.
