Willis Gaylord Clark By John Sartain. Image from Hathi Trust
Here speaks the voice of God — let man be dumb, Nor with his vain aspirings hither come. That voice impels the hollow-sounding floods, And like a presence fills the distant woods. These groaning rocks the Almighty’s finger piled; For ages here his painted bow has smiled, Mocking the changes and the chance of time — Eternal, beautiful, serene, sublime!
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
Also Published in the Albany Evening Journal, July 12, 1836, with the note “The following impromtu was inscribed on the Travellers’ Register at Niagara Falls, a few days ago, by the editor of the Philadelphia Gazette.” Selections from The Travellers’ Register were published as the Table Rock Album.
Also published in: Myron T. Pritchard, comp. Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1901.
Also published in: Johnson, Richard L. (ed). Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898.
Also published in: Holley, George W., ed. The Falls of Niagara. Baltimore: A.C. Armstrong & Son, 1883
Spanish Aero-Car (photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library)
Had Dante ever seen this prodigy,
This monstrous monument of Nature's wrath,
Then had he found new terrors to surround
The entrance to Inferno. At the gate
A power invisible becomes our guide,
And our smooth car swings into the Abime.
The evening shades have fallen and a cloud,
Huge, threatening, and amorphous settles down,
Bridging the gulf. Lo! now assails our ears,
The hissing tumult of the floods that dash,
Writhing in agony, 'twixt iron walls,
O'er rude and tortuous beds!
The uproar grows,
And the pent waters churning into foam,
Round adamantine boulders, scream aloud,
Till maddened past all bound, they end the note
In maniac glee!
Above and all about,
Colossal cliffs their lithic brows uplift,
To the grim skies, and horror reigns supreme!
"Release!" "Release!" the torn waves howl beneath --
"Give us release!" -- and the harsh cliffs reply,
With mocking echoes -- their eroded breasts,
Gargantuan laughter shakes.
And now our car
Leaves the dread scene, and up the wall's sheer side,
Climbs, groaning with vast effort, till we view,
From perilous height the black gulf far below,
And quake to ponder plunging down so steep,
To dire destruction!
All at once there opes
A rocky portal, and we breathe relief,
For, lo! the streets, the windows, and the lights!
The newsboys' cries, the clatter of the town!
Source: Rev. James B. Dollard. Poems. Toronto: The Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada, 1910.
Thundering clouds
over the roar of a thousand nights
smashing water
spilling mist on ancient rocks.
Tremors beget the moving form
created to carry men in God’s direction
yet,
Sons of Adam, Listen!
Building the Tower of Babel
dumb in spirit
yet brilliant in designing
a god to themselves
In the midst of futile human endeavor
stands a mighty warrior,
an ancient ghost
“Onguirahra! Noss oossima!”
tall, courageous
believing in a power
greater than that
which was created
Sons of Adam, look!
On mighty rushing wings
He raises his spear
and with one fell swoop
brings down
the concrete rocks.
and the river rises up
to greet Him
moving faithfully forward
with the thundering power of the falls.
Peace is restored
and a tree planted by the river
reaches its roots out
and grows among men’s ashes.
while the warrior
rests beneath its shade.
And is refreshed
in the cool depths
of Onguirahra!
It’s Niagara lost
in the 20th century, disappeared
from the cereal box, up in mist,
a canvas backdrop in one hundred thousand
dead photographs, fading from postcards,
gone to Bermuda, Disney World, flown
to Aruba, splish took a bath at Niagara
splash went to Vegas for the weekend—
but had room at the motel
for Joseph and Marilyn
and were they impressed?
There’s no record of it.
But the first human record at Niagara
before it had name–the first human at ?
who left a flint spear point, water
falling at the whirlpool then,
at old gorge, and the spear point:
dropped in fear, in awe,
in wonder at new water,
ice falling who thought of it as !
Wandering hunter, archaeologists say, who
if he were there at all, didn’t stay long,
as if he had, for months let’s say, they’d
have known—would have found the tree
against which he relieved himself,
charcoal trace on stone, where he
cooked fish—as if no Niagara rock
has been left unturned.
The most recent evidence indicates he
did stay but a brief time—only minutes—
that dizzy from spoiled fish innards
he stumbled out of the woods
toward thunder, saw falling water, stared
slack-jawed into mists and steam rising
against south gorge wall, had visions:
The wall exploding, water rushing forth
gnawing south, divers fearful things—
dropped his spear, fled empty-handed
and throwing up back among the trees
and who wouldn’t have?
What he saw: the sun rising and setting
3 million 647 thousand 445 times, ten
thousand winters and springs, trees
leafing out, hot suns, leaves coloring,
withering, dropping, snows whirling,
grass greening, fogs gathering, rains,
trees dying, toppling, new trees as slim
as spears growing thicker than his body,
salamanders mating between his gnarled toes,
mice nibbling algae from his ankles, a wolf
marking territory on his left shin
Joseph Avery stranded just above Niagara Falls. Daguerreotype by Platt Babbitt
I.
ALL night long they heard in the houses beside the shore,
Heard, or seemed to hear, through the multitudinous roar,
Out of the hell of the rapids as ‘t were a lost soul’s cries, —
Heard and could not believe; and the morning mocked their eyes,
Showing, where wildest and fiercest the waters leaped up and ran
Raving round him and past, the visage of a man
Clinging, or seeming to cling, to the trunk of a tree that, caught
Fast in the rocks below, scarce out of the surges raught.
Was it a life, could it be, to yon slender hope that clung ?
Shrill, above all the tumult the answering terror rung.
II.
Under the weltering rapids a boat from the bridge is drowned,
Over the rocks the lines of another are tangled and wound ;
And the long, fateful hours of the morning have wasted soon,
As it had been in some blessed trance, and now it is noon.
Hurry, now with the raft ! But O, build it strong and stanch,
And to the lines and treacherous rocks look well as you launch!
Over the foamy tops of the waves, and their foam-sprent sides,
Over the hidden reefs, and through the embattled tides,
Onward rushes the raft, with many a lurch and leap,
Lord ! if it strike him loose from the hold he scarce can keep !
No ! through all peril unharmed, it reaches him harmless at last,
And to its proven strength he lashes his weakness fast.
Now, for the shore ! But steady, steady, my men, and slow ;
Taut, now, the quivering lines ; now slack ; and so, let her go !
Thronging the shores around stand the pitying multitude ;
Wan as his own are their looks, and a nightmare seems to brood
Heavy upon them, and heavy the silence hangs on all,
Save for the rapids’ plunge, and the thunder of the fall.
But on a sudden thrills from the people still and pale,
Chorussing his unheard despair, a desperate wail :
Caught on a lurking point of rock it sways and swings,
Sport of the pitiless waters, the raft to which he clings.
III.
All the long afternoon it idly swings and sways ;
And on the shore the crowd lifts up its hands and prays :
Lifts to heaven and wrings the hands so helpless to save,
Prays for the mercy of God on him whom the rock and the wave
Battle for, fettered betwixt them, and who, amidst their strife,
Struggles to help his helpers, and fights so hard for his life, —
Tugging at rope and at reef, while men weep and women swoon.
Priceless second by second, so wastes the afternoon,
And it is sunset now ; and another boat and the last
Down to him from the bridge through the rapids has safely passed.
IV.
Wild through the crowd comes flying a man that nothing can stay,
Maddening against the gate that is locked athwart his way.
“No ! we keep the bridge for them that can help him. You,
Tell us, who are you ? ” “His brother ! ” “God help you both ! Pass through.”
Wild, with wide arms of imploring he calls aloud to him,
Unto the face of his brother, scarce seen in the distance dim ;
But in the roar of the rapids his fluttering words are lost
As in a wind of autumn the leaves of autumn are tossed.
And from the bridge he sees his brother sever the rope
Holding him to the raft, and rise secure in his hope ;
Sees all as in a dream the terrible pageantry, —
Populous shores, the woods, the sky, the birds flying free ;
Sees, then, the form, — that, spent with effort and fasting and fear,
Flings itself feebly and fails of the boat that is lying so near, —
Caught in the long-baffled clutch of the rapids, and rolled and hurled
Headlong on to the cataract’s brink, and out of the world.
Source: William Dean Howells. Poems. Boston: J. R. Osgood and Company, 1873
Also published in Myron T. Pritchard, (comp.) Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1901.
Also published in Johnson, Richard L. (ed). Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898
