Tag: poems

The Falls of Niagara by Roswell Rice

rice
Roswell Rice
from the frontispiece of his book Orations and Poetry


As I behold Lake Erie’s waters, 
….While passing down Niagara’s stream, 
I tremble at her awful thunders,
….Like waking from some nightly dream. 

Here nature’s God speaks to the stranger, 
….And terrifies his soul with fear ; 
And shows to him his awful danger, 
….If o’er this chasm he should steer.

His mortal barque would dash in sunder, 
….And break amid the raging stream ; 
The rocks and billows without number, 
….Would soon destroy hope’s faintest gleam.

The Indian warrior down was driven,
….Was threaten’d with the waves of death ; 
He o’er the cataract was riven,
….And to his fate resigned his breath.

Before he plunged the raging waters, 
….Which did his boon of life destroy, 
He to the Spirit prayed for quarters, 
….In the eternal world of joy.

He took his martial bow and armor, 
….And laid them gently by his side ; 
And heard the dismal waters murmur, 
….As he sailed on the rapid tide.

In steady gaze was fast descending,
….To plunge his deep and dreary grave ; 
At length he o’er the verge was bending, 
….And sunk beneath the foaming wave. 

Such is the emblem of the sinner, 
….Whose danger God has long foretold ; 
Yet he will spurn his only Savior, 
….And sell his life for love of gold.

Source: Roswell Rice. Orations and Poetry, On Moral and Religious Subjects.  Albany: C. Van Bentruysen, 1849

Also published in his Rice’s Orations and Poems, Springfield, Mass., Springfield Printing Co., 1883

Niagara by Ira Damon Van Duzee

duzee
American Falls From Foot of Incline, 1898
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

I STOOD on the hanging cliff, and saw
…The river bend and fall
With the ocean’s deep and hollow roar,
…With a constant thunder call.

The polished emerald arch broke out
…In fleece as white as snow,
That flashed a moment in the sun,
…Then sank in chaos below.

I listened to Niagara’s voice,
…And heard the central fire,
Poised on earth’s axle, loose its chains
…And war its fierce desire.

The pewit’s plaintive silver note,
…The cricket’s autumn crone,
The whispering wind, and talking leaves,
…Were hushed in the master tone.

Within that horrible chasm, wide
…The caldron boiled in white
Confusion, chaos of seething foam,
…Obscure as blackest night.

Out of this gulf the river ran,
…So narrow still and deep,
My fancy saw it as a great
…Green serpent, slowly creep.

My frightened vision shrank from it,
…My feet turned back to fix
Themselves upon the solid earth,
…And fly this creeping Styx.

“Niagara, Niagara !
…The hand of God,” I cried,
“Alone could break thy stream in foam,
…And hurl thy rushing tide.

“His hand alone could bend thy peace
…Above, to headlong zest
Against the rocks, and down the gulf,
…To find below thy rest.”

“His hand alone could rend the rocks,
…And guide thy course to wide
Ontario, thence to the gray
…Old ocean’s boundless tide.”

“Earth’s mountains have their mystery,
…The seas their dreary waste
Of waters, sad as Sahara’s sands ;
…The clouds their stormy haste ;—”

“Among the mountains man exults,
…He fearless ploughs the waves,
Stamps on the sands, laughs at the winds
…From out his castle caves;—”

“But on thy banks he feels his pride
…And power are but a straw,
Before thy awful majesty,
…And thy resistless law.”

” Let Danube boast her ancient name,
…The Rhine her castle walls,
The Seine and Thames their cities’ pride—
…But on thy forehead falls”

“A crown of beauty and of power
…Above them all; before
Thy awful face the man is blind,
…And dumb amid thy roar.”

I wooed the green still earth again,
…There saw one wild rose spread
Its crimson in the morning air,
…Its perfume faintly shed ;—

Then reverently I plucked the rose,
…And from the sloping bank
I dropped the red leaves in white foam,
…And down the abyss they sank.

The Father of Floods, my peace offering
…Gave back to me again,
In bending his rainbow over the abyss,
…And in his snowy train.

Now evermore, as the years go by,
…Niagara’s flood and roar,
Will come to me with the tender grace
…Of summer seas on the shore.

Source: I.D. Van Duzee. By the Atlantic: Later Poems. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1892, p. 247-250.

Read about Ira Damon Van Duzee

Niagara by Howard Worcester Gilbert

worcester
Niagara Falls, c1854, by Platt Babbitt,
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress


Far–stretching in the morning beams, 
And blazing in the golden gleams, 
The mingling of a thousand streams !

And trembling many–hued, among
Thy shifting mists, the rainbow hung.
Before thee, o’er thy gulf is flung.

Over thy wave of tender green 
That falls forever down serene, 
Then foams into the whitest sheen,

Its gauzy veil the mist–film throws, 
Through which the shimmering sunshine glows 
Down to thy deep of watery snows.

The avalanche, from mountain–height, 
Sweeps, shuddering, in its awful might, 
And robed in mantle dim and white,

Slow gathering, in its downward sweep, 
Into some gulf’s unfathomed deep, 
With wild, and long, and fearful leap,

Down, down, into the abysmal mist 
Whose mysteries mortal never wist, 
No eye hath seen nor ear may list ;

And silence all the air doth fill 
Save of some moorland–bird the trill, 
Or trickling of the mountain–rill.

But ever–changing thou dost pour, 
Yet still the same, with solemn roar, 
O’er thy dim cliff forevermore.

And standing on thy shore, I seem,
As one who in a silent dream, 
And launched on some mysterious stream,

Is borne, from whence he knows not, hither , 
And with vast sweep is hurried thither, 
He knows not why, he knows not whither ;

While through my brain, in sounding rhyme, 
All thoughts eternal and sublime, 
Course slow, the universe, and time,

And endless change that ceaselessly 
Hymns of eternity through thee, 
And I enter into Infinity.

Published 25th June, 1859

Source:  Howard Worcester Gilbert. Aldornere, and Two Other Pennsylvanian Idylls Together With Minor Poems. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Franklin Printing Co., 1890
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Flow by Roslyn C.

roslyn
Image by Milo Miloezger on Unsplash

Flow, like ocean waves

Everywhere

Reaching

Roslyn C. is a student in Ms. Chivers’ special needs class at A.N. Myer Secondary School in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

See other poems by Ms. Chivers’ students

Flowers by Aileen S.

Forever thankful


Love your company

aileen
  A Bouquet of Forget-Me-Nots.
Photo by Julia Zyablova on Unsplash


Overprotective


Wonderful heart


Enjoyment and excitement


Remembering me


Side by side

…

Aileen S. is a student in Ms. Chivers’ special needs class at A.N. Myer Secondary School in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

See other poems by Ms. Chivers’ students