Sketch of the testing of the cantilever bridge 1883 Courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library
Lo! Cantilever stands the test,
See! see! it bears upon its breast
Fully twenty locomotives’ weight,
Nor bends beneath the heavy freight.
See! twenty engines safely ride
Across Niagara’s seething tide –
Across the mystic iron span –
Last product of the god-like man.
“The Cantilever bridge is strong!”
Exultant shout the wondering throng.
Lo! fifty locomotives screech,
Two nations’ praise blends each with each,
Resounds the East, resounds the West,
The matchless triumph each attest.
The loud applause – the palm each yields
To Cantilever and to Fields.
Gift inscription by Cara Elizabeth Whiton-Stone
What wild convulsion in the ages past
Shook thee to such immeasurable unrest,
Oh, mad Niagara? Did the huge crest
Of some black mountain, splintered by a blast
From Heaven down-bolted, leave these fissures vast
Whence rush thy waters? Or was ocean pressed
From its storm-beaten shores, to dash thy breast
And hurl out rage from thee, while Time shall last?
Rage on, imperial mystery, that thou art;
Chance, in the azoic age, with wonders rife,
At mandate of the gods, from out earth’s heart,
In embryo doomed to everlasting strife,
Thou sprang’st defiant, thundering to thy part,
Magnificent and terrible, as Life.
Rage on, for giant raging thou may’st show,
Through veins that interlace the land, thy power,
And with thy foaming passion, bring to flower
The genius of man; may’st writhing go
Like a colossal serpent, to and fro,
Winding through ribs of steel that massive tower,
And so imprisoned, strike the zenith hour
When science shall supremest secret know:
I liken thee to soul wherein is pent
Divinest madness, that song surging keeps,
Till by unconquerable forces rent,
To mighty music it majestic sweeps.
As the great Odyssey blind Homer sent
Crashing sublimely down eternal steeps.
Source: Myron T. Pritchard, comp. Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1901.
The book lay closed; each page encased in ice,
till languid eons breathed candescent mist,
releasing knowledge, drip by ponderous drip…
* * *
Twelve thousand years ago, Niagara shaped
its first intent; a trickled thoroughfare
along a chasm scarcely there. It swelled,
became a torrent — nudging, pushing, filled
with rampant longings, surging onward, thrust
of power building, frothing thunder leaping!
The source has birthed a sorcerer who hurls
ebullient roars of ecstasy, wears robes
of lucent majesty. The crowds are hushed,
bewitched by spells of wonderment and awe.
* * *
The book was opened; secrets poured from cores
of weighted centuries and wisdom flowed –
in fluid script that no one understood.
(a found poem from the unpublished writings of Bishop John Strachan)
Bishop John Strachan
My brother, after some hesitation, ventured down the precipice; and, having reached the bed of the river below, we were well rewarded. It was now that my expectations were realized: the height of the rock — the thundering of the Fall — the spray forming in rain-bows — the vast volume of water rolling over the impending precipice, produced a sensation overpoweringly sublime.
Source: Colombo, John Robert; and Strachan, John. John Toronto: New Poems by Dr. Strachan Found by John Robert Colombo. [Ottawa] : Oberon Press, 1969.
From the dust jacket: The poems are taken verbatim from Strachan’s uncollected writings. They are poems by virtue of the special character of their eloquence. They are new in that they speak with fresh urgency and directness to a new age.
The withered grass emerged from its coccoon,
its muted green faintly aglow amid the stones.
A wintry howl still echoed in the wind,
in the churning of waters down below.
Their cast-off plunder eddied round and round
as chilly mists ascended
to the hanging oblivion of the funicular,
in an increasing throbbing of cables all aquiver.
And yet in this vacation spot
there will be daffodils and other flowers
alien to the beginning of my life,
when the unspeakable river flowed so gently
within its honey shores.
I know I will return again year after year,
I will return again
wearing a little smile of wonderment
perched on my lips like a question mark.
Original version published in Canadian Literature, no. 142/143, (Fall/Winter 1994). Vancouver: British Columbia University Press. p. 10. This version courtesy of the author, 2001.
