Tag: nature

Niagara by George Houghton

  houghton niagara   

houghton niagara
A Distant View of the Falls of Niagara. 1835, by Thomas Cole.  Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library.

Formed when the oceans were fashioned, when all the world
‡‡was a workshop;
Loud roared the furnace fires, and tall leapt the smoke
‡‡from volcanoes,
Scooped were round bowls for lakes, and grooves for the
‡‡sliding of rivers,
Whilst, with a cunning hand, the mountains were linked
‡‡together.

Then through the day-dawn, lurid with cloud, and rent
‡‡by forked lightning,
Striken by earthquake beneath, above by the rattle of
‡‡thunder,
Sudden the clamour was pierced by a voice, deep-lunged
‡‡and portentous —
Thine, O Niagara, crying: “Now is created completed!”

‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡II.

Millions of cup-like blossoms, brimming with dew and with
‡‡rain-drops,
Mingle their tributes together to form one slow-trickling
‡‡brooklet;
Thousands of brooklets and rills, leaping down from their
‡‡home in the uplands,
Grow to a smooth, blue river, serene and flowing in
‡‡silence.

Hundreds of smooth, blue rivers, flashing afar o’er the
‡‡prairies,
Darkening ‘neath forests of pine, deep drowning the reeds
‡‡in the marshes,
Cleaving with noiseless sledge the rocks red-crusted with
‡‡copper,
Circle at last to one common goal, the Mighty Sea-Water.

Lo! to the northward outlying, wide glimmers the stretch
‡‡of the Great Lake,
White-capped and sprinkled with foam, that tumbles its
‡‡bellowing breakers
Landward on beaches of sand, and in hiding-holes hollow
‡‡with thunder,
Landward where plovers frequent, with the wolf and the
‡‡westering bison.    Continue reading “Niagara by George Houghton” →

Farewell to Niagara by Lydia Huntley Sigourney

sigourney farewell
The Horse-shoe Falls (From the Canadian Side) by W. H. Bartlett, 1842. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

My spirit grieves to say, Farewell to thee,
Oh beautiful and glorious!
                                  Thou dost robe
Thyself in mantle of the coloured mist,
Most lightly tinged, and exquisite as thought,
Decking thy forehead with a crown of gems
Woven by God‘s right hand.
                                  Hadst thou but wrapped
Thy brow in clouds, and swept the blinding mist
In showers upon us, it had been less hard
To part from thee.    But there thou art, sublime
In noon-day splendour, gathering all thy rays
Unto their climax, green, and fleecy white,
And changeful tinture, for which words of man
Have neither sign nor sound, until to breathe
Farewell in agony.    For we have roamed
Beside thee, at our will, and drawn thy voice
Into our secret soul, and felt how good
Thus to be here, until we half implored,
While long in wildering ecstasy we gazed,
To build us tabernacles, and behold
Always thy majesty.
                                  Fain would we dwell
Here at thy feet, and be thy worshipper,
And from the weariness and dust of earth
Steal evermore away.   Yea, were it not
That many a care doth bind us here below,
And in each care, a duty, like a flower,
Thorn-hedged, perchance, yet fed with dews of heaven,
And in each duty, an enclosed joy,
Which like a honey-searching bee doth sing, —
And were it not, that ever in our path
Spring up our planted seeds of love and grief,
Which we must watch, and bring their perfect fruit
Into our Master‘s garner, it were sweet
To linger here, and be thy worshipper,
Until death‘s footstep broke this dream of life.

Source:  Sigourney, Lydia H. Scenes In My Native Land. London: W. Tweedie, 1844. p. 236-237.

 

The Whirlpool of Niagara River Viewed on a Sabbath Morning by Susan Hill Todd

sabbath
Early View of the Niagara River Whirlpool, from a Copper Negative. Photo Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
“It was a Sabbath of the Soul”;
I heard the distant cataract roll
     Its choral anthem high,
Whilst from the forest’s deep repose
A breath of mingled fragrance rose,
     Like incense to the sky.

Its azure dome was o’er my head,
The green leaves started at my tread,
     As if disturbed in prayer;
‘T was nature’s worship — we alone
Could jar its harp-strings — not a tone
     But breathed in concert there.

I saw, below my verdant seat,
The swift Niagara at my feet,
     As in a prison bound;
A rocky bed, with graceful bend
And narrow outlets at each end,
     Encircled it around.

While the proud rapids seem to pause
Indignantly to view the cause
     Of their unwont delay —
In solemn majesty, they turned,
Lingering, as if themselves they spurned,
     In durance thus to stay.

In circling eddies round and round,
I saw the careless driftwood bound,
     And watched it on its way,
Borne gayly on the rapids’ crest,
Till on the water-giant’s breast,
     The passive victim lay.

Within the whirlpool’s false embrace,
Condemned with never-ceasing pace
     Their aimless course to run,
Without a hope or goal in view,
An endless journey to pursue,
     Beginning, never done.

Yet viewlessly these links confine,
Brighter than diamond sparks they shine,
     And merrily they flow,
Whilst each fair shore stands smiling by,
And still the dancing waters fly,
     To music, as they go.

And then I felt like one who dreams,
And all his airy visions deems
     Realities of life;
The senseless logs like men were seen, —
A metamorphosis, I ween,
     Not much with truth at strife.

For is not human life a stream,
Whose rapids (cares and pleasures) seem
     To us but infant’s play,
Till, into passion’s current hurled,
Amid its restless vortex whirled,
     We chase the hours away?

What are the chains the hands have wrought?
The strongest chain is made of thought,
     The poet said of yore;
Spellbound by habit, thus we see,
The ocean of eternity,
     Yet seek its bliss no more.

O would we nature’s lessons read,
And draw our pure, exalted creed
     From her celestial lore,
All earth would then be hallowed ground,
In every stream some virtue found
     The spirit’s woes to cure.

Source: Myron T. Pritchard, comp. Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1901.

Originally published in Susan Hill Todd’s Occasional Poems: a New Year’s Offering. Boston: W. Crosby and H. P. Nichols, 1851

Niagara by Mary A. Shepherd

shepherd niagara
Aerial view of Niagara Falls. Photo by Andrew Porteus

Through the ear the “Mighty Thunderer” makes
First assault upon the senses. A roar,
Like a thousand throbbing jungle drums, shakes
The earth, calling to see what lies in store.
Then through the eye, fearing to look away,
Lest it lose one moment of such splendour.
Then through the flesh, as on the face, cold spray
Mingles with tears which awe doth engender.
Indians, priests, explorers visioned naught
Of the miracles which were to flower,
As man with his struggling, probing mind sought
And found means to harness thy great power.
What riddles since first thy birth by glacier!
What riddles yet ere the last erasure!

Source: V.B. Rhodenizer (ed.) Canadian Poetry Magazine vol. 21, no. 1, Autumn 1957.

Seeing Niagara by Lini Grol

All excited,
they landed with their camera
to see all of Canada,
but most of all,
that great NIAGARA FALL.

Worldy-wise they ignore
the neon signs enticing them
to spend their precious time,
and dole out their hard-won yens.

Eagerly they go on
then falter to a silent stare
at the Niagara in its roaring Fall …
Intimidated, for a moment
they marvel at its immense powers.
Then turning
they quietly drink
in with glowing delight
the scent and sight
of the billions of flowers,
who silently ring
the roaring powers
of the Niagara Falls.

Source: Grol, Lini, ed. by Kevin McCabe and Lynne Prunskus. Lake to Lake: Lini Grol’s Niagara.  St. Catharines: Blarney Stone Books, c2000.