Horseshoe Falls and American Falls with Rainbow and Heavy Mist, August 2005. Photo by Alina Rashid. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
The mist climbs Niagara as it roars at you
The waters drop into the basin mixed brew
The liquid flows to the whirlpool down river
Becoming a churning rapid making you quiver
This natural wonder continues night and day
You relax at its edge feeling its spray
A rainbow appears as the sun peeks through
Your heart pulsates gazing on this view
Nature’s beauty and senses seem to connect
This wondrous sight you will not forget.
February 14, 2011
Source: Charles Antonio, April 2021
Mr. Antonio was born and raised in Niagara Falls. He loves the beauty of the Falls itself and the City in which he resides. His previous profession, a structural draftsman, allowed him to assist with local festivals, movie productions, building additions and industrial plant construction. He was a Chair of the East Niagara Housing Authority, Chair of the City of Niagara Falls Committee of Adjustment, and a Unemployment Insurance Appeals Judge. The vast wealth of local knowledge he has accumulated over the years has given him a keen eye for nature and our local fauna and flora. His hobbies, which include woodcarving, painting, sketching, interior design and poetry are a reflection of his passion and love of the Niagara Region.
Weidemeyer’s Admiral Butterfly (Limenitis weidemeyerii), named after noted lepidopterist John William Weidemeyer
ERE beings with soul and mind arrayed
Their earthly habitation had made—
When the Saurian monsters in agony lay,
Stricken by doom, on their beds of clay—
Like a meteor, illuming some desolate land, Niagara leaped from its Maker’s hand !
Once spirits of beauty that manhood enslave
At nightfall were seen on its emerald wave;
In seraphic strain they whispered a song
Whose rapturous concords to Eden belong.
They hunted the thicket with spear and with bow,
Or called the Naiades from their caverns below,
To search for the living trophies that sink
In the green gulf of water that flows o’er the brink
A fairy isle trembles on the cataract’s crest,
Beloved by the waves, that hold it compressed;
And, like worshipping Magii, rainbows arise,
’Neath these acres of paradise dropped from the skies.
Transition and death now dwell in the smile
Of the white, foaming rapids that sweep past the isle;
Could their waters but cleanse the deep stain of man’s sin,
How many a diver the torrent would win!
In vain the Ice-king, whose touch is death,
Would stem the wild current, with Arctic breath;
With slow-creeping gait, and palsying shock,
Though he bind the cataract fast to the rock,
Long ere the green blade has pierced the ground,
Sunbeams dispel the enchantment around,
And the waters rush on to the far distant sea,
As if wandering their way to eternity.
Source: J.W. Montclair. Real and Ideal: A Collection of Metrical Compositions. New York: F. Hart, Printer, 1864.
N.B. – J.W. Montclair is a pseudonym for John William Weidemeyer.
Daffodils in Front of the Illuminated American Falls. Photograph by Andrew Porteus
Alison Langley, a reporter for the Niagara Falls Review has written an article about Andrew Porteus and the Niagara Falls Poetry Project to help celebrate National Poetry Month. The article has been reprinted below. See the original article here
As the former manager of adult reference and information services at Niagara Falls Public Library, Andrew Porteus would often come across poems about Niagara Falls in unusual places.
After reading a poem about the Falls in an old book about engineering, he realized its audience was extremely limited, other than people who came across it by accident like he did.
To that end, he copied the poem and created a file dedicated to Niagara Falls poetry. Each time he came across another poem, he’d add it to the file.
More than 20 years after discovering that obscure poem in an engineering book, the file now includes more than 500 poems relating to Niagara Falls.
And, there’s lots more out there yet to be discovered, said Porteus, a retired librarian who recently completed his master of arts degree at Brock University.
“… there are still a ton out there,” he said.
His Niagara Falls Poetry Project can be found online at niagarapoetry.ca. The site receives between 750 and 1,500 hits monthly.
The project has become part of the poetry in place movement, which highlights poems that give the reader a sense of a location as opposed to a concept.
“I know one person is using the site for the university project and I suspect some university instructors are finding it and students are looking at it as well,” Porteus said.
The substantial collection includes what is believed to be the first poem to reference Niagara Falls, “Untitled” by Le Sievr de la Franchise, from 1604.
The catalogue includes “Niagara, Seen on a Night in November” by Adelaide Crapsey.
How frail
Above the bulk
Of crashing water hangs,
Autumnal, evanescent, wan,
The moon.
Crapsey is known as the inventor of the cinquain, a poem of five short lines of unequal length. She died in 1914 and her poems were published posthumously.
Porteus regularly updates the site and welcomes submissions of original poems about Niagara Falls, and from Niagara poets.
Recent additions include C.D. Onofrio’s “Italian Angel of Gelato,” inspired by the Italian Ice Cream shop on Victoria Avenue, and F.J. Doucet’s “My Grandmother was a Waitress in Niagara Falls.”
Porteus has also added an interactive map marking specific locations linked with specific poems. Each “pin” on the map includes a poem or two and some interesting facts about the area.
There’s also a Poetry Walking Tour of Niagara Falls app available on the site.
“It makes for a more interesting experience of the Falls if you are interested in poetry,” Porteus said.
“It’s sort of combining different aspects of the Falls together to make one experience.”
April is National Poetry Month, and Porteus encourages people to check out the site to celebrate poetry and its important place in Canadian culture.
National Poetry Month began in the U.S. in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets.
Members handed out copies of T.S. Elliot’s “The Waste Land,” which begins “April is the cruelest month …” to people waiting in line to mail their tax returns.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡I.
In broken lines, like ghosts of buried nations, ‡‡Struggling beneath their white and tangled palls,
They leap and roar to Earth their exaltations, ‡‡And Earth e’en trembles as each spectre falls.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡II.
With strength that gives solemnity to clangour, ‡‡With quaint immensity that strangles mirth,
Like mortal things they roar to time their anger, ‡‡Like things immortal they disdain the Earth.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡III.
They bound—as dallying in their gorgeous West, ‡‡In forest cradles and in parent mountains,
They heard old Ocean throb his regal breast ‡‡And call his vassals—the cascades and fountains.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡IV.
From crag to crag they leap and spread the sound, ‡‡Through gorge and wood their flashing banners motion,
Till here in frantic rivalry they bound, ‡‡These mighty white-plumed cohorts, for the ocean.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡V.
Surging along the pale battalions muster, ‡‡Crowding each other, till the strongest springs
A-top his fellows, with heroic lustre, ‡‡And dares the deeds, like Viking, that he sings.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡VI.
Like men, the Rapids, born amid restless valor, ‡‡Flash o’er their foes with many a frothened spasm,
And linking all in pomp’s majestic pallor, ‡‡Leap like ten thousand Romans down the chasm !
There is an awful eloquence around— ‡‡Like earthquake underneath the dreamful pillows
Of some great town, that deemed its strength profound, ‡‡And wakes on worse than frantic Ocean’s billows.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡II.
The mists, like shadowy cathedrals rise, ‡‡And through the vapory cloisters prayers are pouring :
Such as ne’er sprang to the eternal skies, ‡‡From old Earth’s passionate and proud adoring.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡III.
There is a voice of Scripture in the flood, ‡‡With solemn monotone of glory bounding,
Making all else an awe-hushed solitude ‡‡To hear its everlasting faith resounding.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡IV.
There is a quiet on my heart like death, ‡‡My eyes are gifted with a strange expansion,
As if they closed upon my life’s last breath, ‡‡And oped to measure the eternal mansion.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡V.
I see so much I fear to trust my vision, ‡‡I hear so much I doubt my mortal ear,
I feel so much, my soul in strong submission ‡‡Bends in a silent, death-like rapture here.
Source: John Savage. Faith and Fancy. New York: James B. Kirker, 1864
Niagara! As I look upon thy ever-foaming ‡‡and ever-rushing waters, my heart is filled ‡‡with awe and admiration.
Thou standest as a wonder of Ages, to which ‡‡man may look and discern the overruling ‡‡power of Him who governs the Universe.
When the steamer, from the pure and clear waters ‡‡of the Ægean sea bore me to Patmos,
There I beheld the very spot where John heard ‡‡the voice of God, as the “sound of many ‡‡waters ;”
And now, as I hear “the sound of many waters,” ‡‡I am amazed and trembled ! Thy ‡‡voice, O Niagara, is Jehovah’s voice!
I heard many seas roaring, and powerfully beating ‡‡our frail bark.
I heard the mighty waves of the Ocean in their ‡‡greatest fury dash and roar.
But thy thunder-like voice surpasses all. Unrivalled ‡‡stands thy majestic tone!
Let me admire thee, 0 monument of unsurpassed ‡‡greatness, let me drink of thy crystal ‡‡waters.
Many sad and pleasant recollections cluster ‡‡around thy watery grave! Who ever thought ‡‡that I would look upon thy mighty cataracts ?
That I would see the tri-colored-diadem which ‡‡the sun daily lays upon thy imperial brow!,
But alas ! I must leave thee! Other places ‡‡invite me, farewell ! thy voice, O Niagara ! ‡‡shall for ever ring in my ears.
May thy waters roll on for ever, to charm others, ‡‡and enchant them with a view of thee, ‡‡which so many desire to see.
And if I return to my native land, and visit ‡‡again Athens and the shores of fair Pallas,
There amidst those classic scenes, I shall remember, ‡‡O Niagara, with undying affection, ‡‡the pleasant moments I spent upon thy eternal banks!
Canale first published this poem in the Boston Journal, July 10, 1858
Source: Robert S. Littell (ed.) The Living Age August 28, 1858 (vol. 58)
From The Boston Journal:
NIAGARA FALLS IN HELLENIC BALLAD
Mr. Canale, a Greek gentleman residing in this city, has kindly furnished to us a literal translation of a Greek lyric poem which he wrote while viewing “Niagara Falls.” The poem is marked for its simplicity and beauty, and although the translation presents but a very faint picture of the original, depriving it of the harmony and the onomatopoetic structure upon which so much of the beauty of lyric poetry depends, still we publish it with pleasure, being the first time, so far as we know, that Niagara the “wonder of the world,” has been immortalized in the language of Pindar.
The original poem, we understand , has been forwarded to be published in one of the Athenian Magazines.
