Horseshoe Falls, Niagara by Sir James E. Alexander. Hand tinted by Erna Jahnke. Courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library
All hail, Niagara! by thine awful noise, Great fear is caused in minds of little boys;
And as thou rollest with thy mighty rumble,
All must acknowledge that thou mak’st a tumble. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever;”
And in that way thou certainly art clever.
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
Niagara – here Nature holds its sway,
While man, with both delight and awe, doth
Gaze and wonder at its magnificence.
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 (Click for Table of Contents)
Also published in the anthology Porteus, Andrew C. Niagara Mornings. Niagara Falls, Ont. Grey Borders Press, 2016 (Click for Table of Contents)
Boz was a pseudonym often used by Charles Dickens. Dickens visited Niagara Falls in April, 1842. It is likely, but not certain, that Dickens penned this verse, although no date was given for it.
This is Jehovah’s fullest organ strain! ‡‡I hear the liquid music rolling, breaking.
From the gigantic pipes the great refrain ‡‡Bursts on my ravished ear, high thoughts awaking!
The low sub-bass, uprising from the deep, ‡‡Swells the great paean as it rolls supernal —
Anon, I hear, at one majestic sweep ‡‡The diapason of the keys eternal!
Standing beneath Niagara’s angry flood — ‡‡The thundering cataract above me bounding —
I hear the echo: “Man, there is a God!” ‡‡From the great arches of the gorge resounding.
Behold, O man, nor shrink aghast in fear! ‡‡Survey the vortex boiling deep before thee!
The Hand that ope’d the liquid gateway here ‡‡Hath set the beauteous bow of promise o’er thee!
Here, in the hollow of that Mighty Hand, ‡‡Which holds the basin of the tidal ocean,
Let not the jarring of the spray-washed strand ‡‡Disturb the orisons of pure devotion.
Roll on Niagara! great River King! ‡‡Beneath thy sceptre all earth’s rulers, mortal,
Bow reverently; and bards shall ever sing ‡‡The matchless grandeur of thy peerless portal!
I hear, Niagara, in this grand strain ‡‡His voice, who speaks in flood, in flame, and thunder —
Forever, mayst thou, singing, roll and reign — ‡‡Earth’s grand, sublime, supreme, supernal wonder.
Source: Severance, Frank H. Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier. Buffalo: The Matthews-Northrup Co., 1899
When the bridegroom
Reaches the room
With breath bated
He approaches
The moment long awaited.
He takes off his loud cravat
And his shirt and his hat,
His trousers and his shoes,
And his undershirt and drawers.
Naked, as from his mother,
He attempts with another
To return to that sweet night of the womb.
Source: James Reaney. The Red Heart. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1949
Canadian Falls from Road to Ferry by John Herbert Caddy, 1839. Colour tint by Erna Jahnke. Courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library.
An anthem, ‘like the sound of many waters !’
The prophet heard it, as in wondrous vision
He lay entranced upon the cliffs of PATMOS ;
And wouldst thou hear its emblem, go and listen,
In deep and dread delight, to NIÀGARA !
That everlasting anthem which hath peal’d
Nor paus’d a moment, from the birth of ages !
And, fitting emblem of celestial chorus,
The loud eternity of rushing music
Disturbs not, but subdues and fills, the spirit
With feelings of unutterable stillness,
And infinite tranquillity, excluding
The world with all its dissonance of passions. ‡‡There, too, a cloud of ever-offer’d incense
From nature’s altar,— in the vapoury column
On which bright rainbows beam the smiles of mercy, —
Hath risen well-nigh six thousand years to heaven,
In unison with that astounding chorus
Of multitudinous and white-robed waters,
So glorious in the fury of their rapture
Around their awful and mysterious centre ! ‡‡And oft, stupendous Cataract, as winter
Comes listening to thy choral hallelujahs,
And gazing on thy pomp of rising incense;
With mimic semblance of some mighty temple
He loves to grace thee, and thy shaggy borders
Fantastically silvers o’er with frost-work;
Pranking with icy pinnacles and pillars
The walls of thy magnificent Catherdral :
But ne’er Cathedral owned a crypt so dreadful
As thine, o’er-arch’d with such a thundering deluge. ‡‡And still the thunder of the eternal anthem,
And still the column of ascending incense,
Shall draw remotest pilgrims to they worship,
Shall hold them breathless in thy sovereign presence,
And lost to all that they before had look’d on;
Yea, conjur’d up by strong imagination,
Shall sound in ears that never heard the music,
Shall gleam in eyes that ne’er beheld the vision;
Till the great globe, with all that it inherits,
Shall vanish, — like that cloud of ceaseless incense, —
In thunder, — like that falling world of waters. ‡‡Oh peerless paragon of earthly wonders !
Embodying, in their most intense expression,
Beauty, sublimity, might, music, motion,
To fix and fill at once eye, ear, thought, feeling;
And kindling, into unknown exaltation,
Dread and delight, astonishment and rapture !
Sure GOD said, let there be a NIÀGARA !
And, lo, a NIÀGARA heard His bidding;
And glimmer’d forth a sparkle of His glory,
And whisper’d here the thunder of Omnipotence !
Clifton, April 1839
Source: Barham, William. Descriptions of Niagara; selected From Various Travellers. Gravesend: William Barham, [1847], p176-177
