“The Columbiad” – Joel Barlow, Engraving by Ankar Smith
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Now where the lakes, those midland oceans, lie,
Columbus turn’d his heaven-illumined eye.
Ontario’s banks, unable to retain
The five great Caspians from the distant main,
Burst with the ponderous mass, and forceful whirl’d
His Laurence forth, to balance thus the world.
Above, bold Erie’s wave sublimely stood,
Look’d o’er the cliff, and heaved his headlong flood;
Where dread Niagara bluffs high his brow,
And frowns defiance to the world below.
White clouds of mist expanding o’er him play,
That tinge their skirts in all the beams of day;
Pleased Iris wantons in perpetual pride,
And bends her rainbows o’er the dashing tide.
Far glimmering in the north, bleak Huron runs,
Clear Michigan reflects a thousand suns,
And bason’d high, on earth’s broad bosom gay,
The bright Superior silvers down the day. ‡‡‡‡* * * * * * * * * * * *
Source: Joel Barlow. The Columbiad. C. & A. Conrad, 1807
Illustration from Parker’s Niagara’s Rainbow, by Mary Muse Fletcher
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Yon Rainbow, circling great Niagara’s brow,
Tells, children, of a chieftain’s awful vow;
Hark to its tale of sadness and of love,
All other legends of our race above:
The story of Wenona’s White Canoe,
The grand devotion of her lover true,
The fate that swept their youthful lives away,
Marked by Niagara’s Rainbow to this day.
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For know, my children, in the days of yore,
Or ever white man’s foot had pressed this shore,
In forest deep and dark our fathers dwelt,
Before the Manitou devoted knelt,
Craved His protection and His mighty aid
Against the foe and famine — to Him prayed
When pestilence up-raised its baleful head,
Swelling the gruesome ranks of warrior dead.
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But comes a day when prayer and offering fail,
When medicines of wise men naught avail,
When through the tribe, with footsteps grim and gaunt,
Stalk the twin spectres, Pestilence and Want.
In terror then, around the council fire
Gather the chiefs, their head Wenonah’s sire;
“What can we offer Thee, Oh! Manitou?”
Speaks the Great Spirit then: “The White Canoe!”
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Full well they know the precious sacrifice
Demanded, but, though terrible the price,
To save the few still left it must be paid —
Niagara’s Water-god the fairest maid
Of all the tribe as offering must claim —
Her sacrifice to cleanse the tribe of blame.
Who shall it be? Alas! there is but one
On whom the lot can fall! The deed is done!
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Like arrow to the mark each glance now turns
Toward fair Wenonah, and her sire’s heart yearns
At thought that she – his dear – his only child,
Must seek her fate beneath the waters wild.
Stately he rises in his place: “Nay! nay!”
He cries, “If naught but that our doom can stay,
We’ll brave the famine’s pestilential breath,
Till all the tribe lies stark and cold in death!”
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Up springs Wenonah: “Father! hear me speak!
Though but a woman, think me not so weak
That I would shrink, a coward, from flood or fire,
To save my tribe! My blood is thine, my sire!
Lead on, Oh! warriors, to Niagara’s Fall
Its might shall not my woman’s heart appal!
Farewell, my sire! Uncas, my love, farewell!
Great Water-god! sound thou Wenonah’s knell!”
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And now, through leagues of forest have they tracked
Their mournful way toward the Cataract.
Before that band of dusky warriors grim
Stalks, stern and silent, the gaunt form of him
Who, savage chieftain of a savage race,
Yet, sorrow pictured in his warrior face,
Now, torn with anguish, offers up his child,
A sacrifice unto the waters wild.
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Amid the circle of her dusky maids,
Wenonah treads the darksome forest glades,
The fairest of her tribe — her Nation’s pride —
While Uncas walks dejected by her side.
And though her own brave eyes are filled with tears,
She strives with cheerful word to calm his fears,
But nought can give his troubled spirit rest,
Or loose those savage lips, with grief compressed.
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Now, as she hears Niagara’s deep boom,
A premonition of her dreadful doom,
Reverberating through the forest aisles,
Up in her lover’s face she faintly smiles,
And whispers of that land beyond the grave,
That bourne of maiden pure and warrior brave,
Where she, though now torn weeping from his side,
In the Great Spirit’s home may be his bride.
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The White Canoe receives its precious freight
Of flowers and fruit, and clad in mimic state,
Reclines amid the bloom, Wenonah fair —
Most luscious fruit, and fairest blossom there.
The warriors grim, smile on such beauteous bribe,
To lure the spirits’ blessing on their tribe,
And all save Uncas gaze with eager eye,
As bark and burden down the current fly.
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But not alone must poor Wenonah brave
That dreadful vortex, for, though nought can save,
A love there is, death even cannot part,
And such the love that fills brave Uncas’ heart;
A single stroke and they are side by side,
Alone — together — ‘mid the boiling tide!
Hand clasped in hand as plunging o’er the brink —
Heart throbs with heart as in the flood they sink.
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The striken warriors turn in mute dismay,
Then silent — saddened — take their homeward way,
And on their heads, from out the cloudless blue,
The spray-drops fall, tinted with rainbow’s hue
“The Spirit weeps,” they cry, “for Uncas brave —
The Spirit’s bow lies upon Uncas’ Grave!”
And still the mists from her vexed bosom rise,
Niagara’s tears for Love’s great sacrifice,
And still o’er Uncas’ grave the spirit’s rainbow lies.
Source: Willard Parker. Niagara’s Rainbow: The Legend of the White Canoe. Conshohocken, PA: Willard Parker Publishing Co., 1922.
How sad, my God, to linger here, ‡‡‘Mid all these works of thine.
Alone, bereft of all I’ve loved, ‡‡And joys that once were mine!
Loud anthems cheer those crested waves, ‡‡And kiss the floods below;
Where hidden thunder smites the rocks, ‡‡And bursts in ceaseless praise,
Of HIM who fix’d the rainbow there, ‡‡To mark its brightest days!
Oh! where ‘mid all this radiant joy, ‡‡Can sorrow hope to live,
Deserted by those rays of Peace, ‡‡Which Thou alone can’st give?
* * * *
Cold, cold, and blank, that once bright home, ‡‡Where now, in lonely hours,
Love hovers round the vacant chair, ‡‡And haunts the silent bowers;
And Hopes once cherish’d there, have chang’d, ‡‡To Tears in sorrow shed,
Reflecting back the scenes I lov’d, ‡‡Ere that sweet spirit fled!
Kindred scenes, my GOD are these, ‡‡Which now around me lie,
Ever whisp’ring ― “cease poor soul, ‡‡WEtoo have yet to die!”
September 21, 1871
Source: Ridgway, Robert (ed.) The Canadian Magazine vol. 1 – July to December 1871. Toronto: Irving, Flint & Co., 1871. p. 295
A crowd flowed onto the Suspension Bridge. Another onto Prospect Point. A third onto the Three Sisters Islands —all along the railings in the gorge. Across the river, a thousand more poured down to Table Rock. And up the shore, a hundred others— men, women and children— stood by the dock at Truesdale’s cottage, waiting to see me off. There were no clouds that morning, and so much light it seemed ten suns were whirling as I stepped into the skiff—in a tossing sea of handkerchiefs— and waved to them (while Russell blew a kiss) amidst the general hurrah.
Then we set out—with Truesdale straining the tiller against the single, headstrong sail— and Billy Holleran, a strong, strapping boy, manning the furious oars. The barrel rode upright behind us, bucking to run its course —and was jerked back to correction by the stern instruction of our rope. A quarter way out, we stopped on an island where I changed my clothes: no hat or dress now, but a blouse left open at the throat, and a skirt hemmed just below the knee. I made them turn away while I backed in through the rim— then they fastened down the lid, rolled me to the shore, turned me upright— pushed me in.
Four boats now. And behind the first, the towed barrel, weighed down with me— yet still intractable. And in the last, a cameraman recording every stroke as they rowed a mile across to the Point of No Return— where the river starts to churn, and a sailor knows he’d better bend his back —or else go over. There they knocked. And cut the rope. They must have pulled hard then to turn themselves south, but I went north—(a half mile more before I’d reach the brink). I careened and spun. Once it tossed me clear up out of the water. I went unbidden—and unwelcome—where it rushed me.
I wished I could have watched from some place overhead and heard the voices racing down the shore— passing on the message— dock to island, island to rock, rock to bridge: “She’s coming!” I would have liked to see them turn their heads— wave after wave, as each new group heard the murmur and craned their necks to catch a glimpse. I’d have liked to see the trolley racing down the shore, and the incline railway rushing down the gorge —so the ones who’d waved from Truesdale’s dock could be standing on the rocks below the Falls, looking up—to see if anything would come.
from Queen of the Mist, a novel in verse about the first person to go over Niagara in a barrel
In nature, all acts that have gone before
Leave traces, record marks, clues, tracks in store
That many persons pause to ponder o’er.
From inside outwards was the earth’s crust made,
The hollows caved in, the high mountains stayed,
Encircling flames produced the waters vast,
And time and seasons scaled things to the last.
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Would thirty thousand years of effort score
On your astonishment a mark, or more?
Then hearken to a tale of work replete
With action in rain, sunshine, frost and sleet.
The speaker is NIAG’RA RIVER, old,
Clear, turbulent, odd, scenic giver, bold.
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With strength unshorn by time, and white of brow,
But not from years, I am the center now
For myriads that travel from far and
Near to view my Falls as the cascade grand.
My life is in the cycle of the rain,
My strength from waters the Great Lakes retain.
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The first to view the drainage plan, of three
Such large lakes flowing into Erie free,
Thence through me to a fifth and on to sea,
Said, “This is quite rare and not apt to be.”
Important link am I, from fourth to last,
The present scanned, the future viewed, or past.
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The deep flow of my misting Horseshoe Falls,
Out does thin water leaping from side walls.
The view and sound effects are rapturous,
The roar, thump grind and spray continuous.
At what they sense, the millions gaze appalled,
Awondering, breath indrawn, stilled, enthralled. Continue reading “The River Niagara by Donald Lashelle”→
