Thy mother, Erie, loves each furious form:
The crash of water and the howl of wind
Are ever in her mind,
For she is called the sweetheart of the storm.
And thou, Niagara, art thy mother’s child —
And with thy restless spirit now I go
The world’s most tragic water-way, and lo!
Like thee to narrow ways unreconciled.

And yet thine early childhood was serene
And fraught with blackened quays and humble craft,
And often thou had’st glimpses of pure green
Where tourists sang and laughed;
But soon thy mother’s whisper bade thee rise
And hurl thy laggard body toward the skies —
And thou did’st then forget
All else save wildness and the haste of life,
And that far, roaring, curving parapet
That called thee to its strife
And then thy feet the maddest race began
That ever waters ran —
Madder than oceans in their wildest hour,
And moving without plan,
Even as chaos ere the worlds began.

If all the mountain snows
Could melt into the beauty of one rose,
That ermine bloom would not more lovely be
Than this pale flower I see —
This curving verdure, crashing into white
More lovely than pure light
And colder than the spirit of the night.

Here all the fury since the world was young
Is chanted on one tongue.
Here all the beauty since the earth was born
Is beaten, bruised and torn.
Here all the passions of the stifled cries
Of sages, who were martyred, wildly rise.
Here is the protest in the daring art
Of all true poets of the rebel-heart.
Continue reading “Niagara by Wilson MacDonald” →