We sat beneath the wooden bridge ‡‡As in a sheltering tent, And watched the water’s emerald ridge ‡‡And marvelous white descent
The schoolboys, ruddy-cheeked and fair, ‡‡Stood round in lightsome mood,
Nor saw the awful presence there, — ‡‡The spirit of the flood.
And yet on one of them, thought I, ‡‡Some deeper influence stole
To touch the slumbering chords that lie ‡‡Even in childish soul.
And when, in later years, his ways ‡‡Beside these steeps shall be,
The wonder-joy his foot that stays ‡‡Shall seem half memory.
Oh, may some heavenly influence ‡‡Still to my soul be nigh
To blend the child’s unconscious sense ‡‡With manhood’s seeing eye!
Listen to Under the Bridge at Niagara read by Oliver Porteus
Written in 1857
Source: Samuel Longfellow. Hymns and Verses. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1894
Samuel Longfellow was the younger brother of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was a clergyman, a poet, and a hymn writer. After his brother died, Samuel published a 2 volume biography of him.
Cover of Helen Keller’s The World I Live In. Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan, Edmund Lyon, and Polly Prate at Niagara Falls, ca. 1893
She could not see the avalanche cascade
from foam-flecked marble rapids, being blind,
but torrents of egrets and apple blossoms played
whirlpools of nebulous beauty in her mind.
She could not hear, tumultuous mystery,
the thunderous plunge, a sea’s storm-breaking crests,
crescendo of a choral symphony,
only the silence when the music rests.
But the earth beneath her trembled. She could feel
a power like perseverance, truth, or love,
the joyous lifting of a bridal veil,
a thirst fulfilled, the mist, the memory of
her teacher’s cool, wet fingers like a brand,
burning that first word water in her hand.
Meryl Stratford is a poet living in Hallandale Beach, Florida.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Have thou never seen, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When the orb of day ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Lightens with his sheen ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Dark Niagara, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡How his glories act ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On the foam, and show, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡O’er the cataract, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Heaven’s beauteous bow? She, who lately plumed for flight, seeking rest above,
Saw thus over Jordan’s tide, arched, the bow of love.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Hath, at eve, thine eye ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Watched the little billow ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rise and gleam and die, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On Atlantic’s pillow — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When it seemed to thee ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Sighing into rest, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Melting peacefully ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Into ocean’s breast? She, as kindly in repose, sighed away her breath,
Peacefully and gently thus, blended into death.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Saw’st thou, when, in light, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Sabbath glories rose? ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡She, a Sabbath bright, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Saw, yet not like those. ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Longed she then to go, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rest above, to spend? ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Yes! begun below, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rest that ne’er shall end.
Voices heard she, loved ones saw, sweetly from the sky
Beckoning to their holy home, wooing her to die.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡In the troublous hour, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡In life’s weary doom, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When disease hath power, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When appears the tomb — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Where’s the sovereign arm, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Strong and swift to save? ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡What can chase alarm, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡What adorn the grave? She could answer, HE was there, swift, the sufferer knew,
HE that through the grave had passed, strong to bear her through.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When Niagara ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Lifts his bow no more, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡When have fled away ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Ocean and the shore, — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡She shall live again, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Where the mortal sigh ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Heaves not, and where pain, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Yea, and Death shall die. She, a child, a seraph now, leans on Jesus’ breast,
Oh, for wings! that we might be, sweet one! thus at rest.
Source: William B. Tappan. Poet’s Tribute; Poems of William B. Tappan. Boston: King, Crocker & Brewster, 1840
William Bingham Tappan, 1794-1849. From his Poet’s Tribute.
Niagara! — the poetry of God!
Whose numbers tell, in everlasting hymn,
Only of God! The morning stars that woke
Music along their courses, early caught
Its far off echoes, and in wild delight
Returned them, softened, round the universe.
Think not, think not, Earth’s triflers! that for you And garish Day, these melodies chime on.
When ye,diminished, lost, are known not, Night,
Night to the aweful anthem ever hearkens,
And ever with new joy. Oh, how sublime
The symphony, that, under the expanse
Of stars, peals on in unexhausted power:
Niagara! — and the sole listener, Night!
Source: William B. Tappan. Poet’s Tribute; Poems of William B. Tappan. Boston: King, Crocker & Brewster, 1840
I hear the thunderous thud, the muffled roar
I see the blinding, wheeling, smiting mists,
The greens, the grays, purples, and amethysts,
From Heaven’s wide palm thy frightened cataracts pour,
And I look up beneath them and adore.
Above me hang chain lightnings on the wrists
Of summer tempests. In the awesome lists
Of contests are the thunders and thy shore.
Beneath thy quivering riven cliff I lie
And gaze into the lightning and the sky
But I hear only thee and touch and see
A hand which undergirds immensity.
Thou speakest much, but speaketh most of him;
God, God, God walks on thy watery rim.
Source: Charles Mason Dow. Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls. Albany: State of New York, 1921. p 825
Originally published in Joseph Cook. Overtones: a Book of Verse. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1903
