Tag: Niagara Falls

The Wonderful Leaps of Sam Patch by Anonymous

[n.b. This is the Niagara section only]

sam
Sam Patch Jumping at Niagara Falls
From The Wonderful Leaps of Sam Patch, c1870

Next, to Niagara thousands flock,
To see him jump from Table Rock,
Into these waters, thunder-hurled,
The seventh wonder of the world.
Folks swarmed on bank and giddy ledge,
On dangerous precipice’s edge,
Nay, really, it has been said,
They stood one on the other’s head,
To get a view when gallant Sam,
Came cool (and modest as a clam),
Pausing upon the trembling verge
To list to what might prove his dirge!

The sun was red, the cliffs aglow,
And foaming white the gulf below,
As Sammy turned his fearless eye
From crowded earth to brilliant sky,
And boldly took the fearful leap
Down, down, into the seething deep!

Each breath was held, each eye was strained—
Huzzah! at last the bank he’s gained!
A shake, a gasp, his breath to catch—
“Now! who will laugh at Samuel Patch?”

‘T was there Sam made his greatest dive—
Feet—full one hundred and sixty-five!

Source: The Wonderful Leaps of Sam Patch. Rochester, NY: Len Rosenberg, Rochester Collection. Reproduction of a book originally published by Len Rosenberg in the 1870s.

Platform built at the base of Goat Island for Sam Patch’s Jump in 1829.
From Official Guide Niagara Falls, River. Electric, Historic, Geologic, Hydraulic by Peter A. Porter with illustrations by Charles D Arnold published 1901. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Sam Patch did not jump from Table Rock as mentioned in the poem and as shown in the illustration. in 1829 he constructed a 120 foot high platform at the base of Goat Island and jumped from there, as depicted in the illustration.

Read more about Sam Patch

The Undertow by Sasha Steensen

steensen
A mountain of snow and Ice almost reaching the crest of the American Falls at Niagara Falls
Undated photo by Gisela Scholz.
Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

I am shown
a generosity

so muddied
at the muddy bottom

of a question I forget to ask
until it’s fished out

but bloated but
in the manner of a net

a web of causal connections
attached to its corners

gently moving over
the surface of the water

how come the road
couldn’t have stayed followed

by way of hollowed out
logs & paddles

made of pawpaw wood
rather than by the crows

alone to the moment
when the Monongahela

the Allegheny
the Ohio meet

I hate the underside
of an idea

but I like the underside
of grass that grows

underwater
and I’ve seen it from there

blossom
as if the water had suddenly

stopped
and then surged forth

from there
I can see a shoal

of tadpoles
drowning themselves

I hate the idea
of the Ohio

as a magic carpet
into the heart

of the continent
a great gift

of geography
a gleaming highway

carrying a tide
of settlement

and expansion but
I despise

the idea of the three rivers
as my family tree

their canals
tributaries & branches

meeting
& later the Mississippi

by its side
for miles

until along comes my
baby floating

in a basket down
the Colorado

I despise all such
undertows

and the fact that I’ve never
heard steamwhistles

or boatmen’s bugles
I’ve never traveled

aboard The Messenger
The Telegraph

The Gladiator
The Ohio Belle

or The Great Republic
nor have I put my foot

in the Ohio
anymore than you

and the Niagara
I abhor the Niagara

in winter the
difficult beauty

of its frozen falls
and all they’ve

come to represent.

Source: Steensen, Sasha, 2010, “The Undertow,” Academy of American Poet’s Daily Poetry Series,               http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21952

Also published in: Steensen, Sasha, 2014, House of Deer, Fence Books, 93.

View Sasha Steensen’s website

 

Untitled by Anonymous as Reported by X.Y.

x.y.
Niagara Falls From Goat Island, 1857
Print by Currier & Ives. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Niagara Falls are a wonderful scene,
Regularly calculated to make the mind serene ;
With their mighty dash and tremendous spray,
They roll and they roll, repeatedly every day !”

**********************************************

These Falls have never been congealed completely,
In this, weak men are agreed, neatly!

Source: X. Y. “Poetry of Young America.” The Massachusetts Teacher and Journal of Home and School Education 10, no. 2 (1857): 89–90. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45023974.

The identity of X.Y. is unknown.

How Niagara Falls by bp Nichol

nichol
Orca Whales Performing in the “D” at Marineland Referred to in Nichol’s Poem
Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

the two
dolphins in
their tank
doing
what is called
“the dance”
by poets
and
the crowd
around

………a
full afternoon
of
dancing around

the
…..D
the monkey’s tail made
in 
that
painting by
Seurat
the shoe-store owner
imitated
for purpose of
display

mo-
tels.

more & more
mo-
tels.

fish mouths
in
supplication

“Double
………….or
Single
Breakfast of
Bacon & Eggs”

“My dear
where
have you been?
What’ve you been
doing? I mean
where have you been?”

At this spot
General Brock
yelled
“forward
.men of York!”
the
Niagara
Parks Commission
built a monument.

the
rest of us
look for
slogans
on which to
base our immortality

they’ve
allowed
Missisauga to
rot, “a
most pitiable
crime.”  the 
doorway to
the second storey
cannot be seen 
any longer

past journeys
are
implied

presence
is
present

the highway
follows the gorge
from 
the border
to
the fort
they built
called
Missisauga
then
never used

it is the same
on both sides -the way
the road
goes, the way
the motels rose

“We
want you to
live”
……..U.S.DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE
……..AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE
……..PLANT QUARANTINE DIVISION

Rooms for tourists
seems
logical
in
a place
no one
would want
to live – all
that water
..to go
over the edge

we bought
shoes in
the shoe store, a
wooden frog
in
the
aquarium, those
things
……….a
person collects
he
refers
the
present to

no
feelings
just
objects. no
things we
wanted to
remember
the day by.

beyond the fort
Lake Ontario had
worn the shore away. the
sky
was grey. it
rained
most of the day.

leaving the American side
a couple were kissing
just because they stood
on
the border line.

Source: Bowering, George (ed). Imago 10: Featuring bp Nichol. Montreal: English Dept., Sir George Williams University, 1967. Accessed on JSTOR 

Read about bp Nichol

Le Niagara by Louis Honoré Fréchette

 

frechette
Niagara Falls, 1902
Published by the Empire Picture Co. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

L’onde majestueuse avec lenteur s’écoule ;
Puis, sortant tout à coup de ce calme trompeur,
Furieux, et frappant les échos de stupeur,
Dans l’abîme sans fond le fleuve immense croule.

C’est la Chute ! son bruit de tonnerre fait peur
Même aux oiseaux errants, qui s’éloignent en foule
Du gouffre formidable où l’arc-en-ciel déroule
Son écharpe de feu sur un lit de vapeur.

Tout tremble ; en un instant cette énorme avalanche
D’eau verte se transforme en monts d’écume blanche,
Farouches, éperdus, bondissant, mugissant. . .

Et pourtant, ô mon Dieu, ce flot que tu déchaînes,
Qui brise les rochers, pulvérise les chênes,
Respecte le fétu qu’il emporte en passant.

Source: Fréchette, Louis Honoré.  Feuilles Volantes ; Oiseaux de Neiges: (cent et un sonnets). Éd. définitive, rev., corr. et augm. Montréal: Librairie Beauchemin, 1908. This poem is dated 1868

A recording, and analysis of this poem, as well as a biography of Fréchette can be found on this page by Camille Chevalier-Karfis

An English translation of this poem by Charles Pelham Mulvany can be found here