Sit by this roaring surge,
‡‡Thou whom scorn wasteth;
And let thy musings be
‡‡Where the Flood hasteth.
Mark, on its troubled breast,
Rolls the white billows’ crest:
So deem his thoughts unrest,
‡‡Who of love tasteth.

Smile thou, O greatly wise;
‡‡And if fate sever
Bonds which the heart doth prize,
‡‡So was it ever.
Deep as the rolling seas,
Soft as the twilight breeze;
But of more truth than these,
‡‡Boast could love never.

Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848

This link takes you to the scanned version of  the 1855 version of Table Rock Album from the Hathi Trust

See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Album on this site.

Niagara ! to thee
‡‡‡‡My spectacles I turn !
I see the waters boil,
‡‡‡‡As if all . . . did burn,
And Satan’s imps, with ardour hot,
Were thrusting wood beneath the pot.

‡‡‡‡O what a deaf’ning noise
Thy tortur’d waters make !
‡‡‡‡The thunders of thy voice
Kept me all night awake :
I could but hear the lumbering sound,
When all were sunk in sleep profound.

‡‡‡‡And then what clouds of spray
Bedim my weaken’d sight ;
‡‡‡‡And then, in light of day,
Bring rainbows to my sight :
Well might poor Snip thus make his note —
“Mem — What a place to spunge a coat !”

‡‡‡‡And then, O what a waste
Of water-power is here !
‡‡‡‡‘Twould move ten thousand water-wheels,
And run them thro’ the year !
Well might the Yankee say — “be still —
Oh what a place to build a mill.”

 

Source: Dr. Thomas Rolph. A Brief Account, Together With Observations, Made During a Visit in the West Indies, and a Tour Through the United States of America, in Parts of the Years 1832-3; Together With a Statistical Account of Upper Canada. Dundas, U.C. : G. Heyworth Hackstaff, Printer, 1836.

Rolph mentions this poem was written in the Table Rock Album; it is not published in Thomas & Lathrop’s excerpts from the Table Rock Album. Rolph would have been looking at the original. See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Albums