Niagara Falls, From International Bridge, c1905. Courtesy of Library of Congress
Majestic symbol of eternal power ! ‡‡Dread oracle of eons all unknown !
Before thy presence Pomp and Passion cower, — ‡‡All men are equal at thy awful throne.
Abashed, the eager babble of the mart, — ‡‡To silence shamed, the vulgar greed for gain ;
No more ambition goads the weary heart, ‡‡And Toil forgets its unrequited pain.
Stern type of Truth’s inexorable law ! ‡‡No room remains for envy or for pride ;
Here prince and pauper stand in common awe, ‡‡Swayed by the spell of thy resistless tide.
A rushing, seething Sinai, — thou dost pour ‡‡On sluggish consciences the solemn sense
Of justice infinite : — thy thunder’s roar ‡‡Declares to Wrong relentless recompense.
Against our arrogance thy strength doth plead ; ‡‡Deep unto deep Imperiously calls ;
Impartial annalist ! the nations read ‡‡Their transient glory on thy ageless walls.
Yet dost thou deign to dower the moment’s need, — ‡‡Our dreams exceeding by thy bounteous sway ;
With power unrivaled thy proud flood shall speed ‡‡The New World’s progress toward Time’s perfect day.
O mighty monitor ! O seer sublime ! ‡‡The soul’s surpassing grandeur thou dost show ; —
The fountains of thy immemorial prime ‡‡Through man’s immortal being freely flow.
Source: Benjamin Copeland. Niagara, and Other Poems. Buffalo: The Matthews-Northrup Works, 1904
Dr. Benjamin Copeland (1854-1940) was a Methodist minister in Buffalo, New York. He founded three Methodist churches in that city and was the author of four volumes of poetry.
Great matchless Flood ! thy thousand lakes and rivers ‡‡Here met, plunge down these awful mountain steeps ;
How ’neath their Titan tramp the firm earth quivers, ‡‡And back with all her cliffs, astonished leaps ! ‡‡Through heaven’s dark halls the thunder wakes and sleeps,
The storm roused ocean raves, and rests his hour ; ‡‡But no repose comes to thy troubled deeps,
Thou sleepless sentinel shouting from thy tower,
To earth and sky the voice of thy stupendous power.
Cities are gathering round thee, human hands ‡‡Thy savage beauty tame, to mold their own ;
Yet firm thy rock seat, sure thy kingdom stands, ‡‡Thou reignest here chief monarch and alone. ‡‡Now yon fair hills the sun crowns like a throne,
Now sinks behind them in his shadowy fall, ‡‡And round his rest the tents of eve are strown,
And night comes listening to thy sovereign call,
As erst through old dim years, from solemn forests tall.
I start from dreams, and hear the tempest roaring, ‡‡Shudders each roof-beam, harsh the window jars ;
I rise, gaze out, — and the fair sky is pouring ‡‡The gentle light of all its glorious stars ! ‡‡Sweet shine the orb of love and red haired Mars ;
No wind ! and up yon vast white tumbling sheet, ‡‡Hangs her faint bow the Moon unstained with bars,
And sees her trembling form beneath thy feet,
Seeming to list the tale thy waters aye repeat.
Wild dusky nations on thy shores have wandered, ‡‡And loved, and fought, — pale armies joined in fray ;
And all have passed — and myriads come and pondered, ‡‡Who now are gone, or soon must go, as they ! ‡‡Still roar and foam thy broad waves green and gray,
Still round thy misty brow the rainbows span, ‡‡No power shall hush thy voice, thy waters stay,
Telling thy strength how mightier far than man,
Till thy small task is wrought in God’s unbounded plan.
Source: James Staunton Babcock. Visions and Voices. Hartford: Edwin Hunt, 1849
When I was young, I would walk to school
In sun or snow or rain
I’d make a left at Montrose Road
And head up Lundy’s Lane.
As I reached the canal, I would stand and look
At the current moving fast.
Then head on quickly to Drummond Road
So I wouldn’t be late for class.
The first day I arrived at school
I was overwhelmed with fright.
Who would I know, where did I fit?
Would I ever feel all right?
But it didn’t take long before friends came along
Ones that attended my previous school.
We were delighted to find one another again
Joking around and acting like fools.
At lunch time we would congregate
In a basement room to eat.
And I would sing an Elvis song
While my best friend kept the beat.
Banging her hands on a garbage can
While the rest of us clapped along.
They were wonderful girls and precious times
Where we all felt we belonged.
Cadets marching in the back field
We enjoyed the discipline.
And the rifle range was a challenging sport
The blasts would make our ears ring.
The time has passed, I’m no longer young
But I still remember those years.
Academic classes and musical shows
Puppy love and all those tears.
I cherish the years I spent there
The memories are etched in my mind.
The friendships and learning that took place
Have sustained me throughout my lifetime.
So in ending this poem I want to give thanks
To my high school on Drummond Road.
My life has been happy – my goals attained
And that’s why I’ve written this ode.
‘T WAS evening, and Niagara’s tide ‡‡Like giant serpent crawling,
Its varnished skin, in moonbeams dyed, ‡‡With hissing voice was calling,
Upon the cataract below, ‡‡Which hoarsely was replying.
E’en thus when fiery rivers flow
Along the sky, and with their glow,
The black couch of the thunderer show, ‡‡We hear his stern voice crying.
It was a night of loveliness, ‡‡A white cloud had been veiling
The moon, but now, with silvery dress ‡‡Athwart the sky was sailing ; —
The bright eyed sentinels that stand, ‡‡Upon the walls of Heaven,
In glittering robes, a radiant band,
With myriad wings the forest fanned,
Whose branches whispered of a land, ‡‡Where endless joys are given
It was a night of loveliness, ‡‡A shallop, old reclining
Beside the shore, seemed in distress, ‡‡Neglected and repining ;
Upon her thwart I set me down, ‡‡And watched the gliding water,
That sparkled like a Monarch’s crown,
And clustered trees, whose shadows brown,
Lay on the landscape, like a frown ‡‡On cheek of beauty’s daughter.
Before me soon, a vision rose, ‡‡An Eden landscape glowing,
Like that which some magician shows, ‡‡All red with roses blowing ;
Where flashing like a sunbeam swift, ‡‡Bright rainbow-tinted wings did quiver,
But soon the fairy-land did drift
Like cloud away, the scene did shift,
I woke, and found myself adrift ‡‡Upon the rushing river !
Oarless, adown the current went ‡‡That boat and I together,
As from their boughs red leaves are rent, ‡‡In Autumn’s stormy weather !
Now in some whirling eddy borne, ‡‡Now bending tree-tops under,
And all the time from silver throne,
As if in mockery, on me shone
The Queen of Night — and solemn — lone, ‡‡Arose the cataract’s thunder !
Down, down we flew ! — no help was near, ‡‡Dark clouds came o’er the water,
As the black wings of Death appear ‡‡O’er crimsoned field of slaughter !
I thought upon my early doom, ‡‡Of hopes once brightly glowing
The golden skies now hid in gloom,
And still the cataract’s solemn boom,
Came like a message from the tomb — ‡‡” To Spirit-Land thou’rt going ! ”
O how the scenes of early days, ‡‡With Memory’s wings, came round me !
It seemed as if some gentle Fays ‡‡In dreamy spell had bound me.
Fond ones were by my side once more, ‡‡Their eyes with kindness beaming,
And ‘ mong them her who ever wore
For me a smile. The cataract’s roar,
Grew louder — but on island shore ‡‡I saw a beacon streaming.
My boat drew near that rocky isle, ‡‡Which for a moment caught her ;
That rugged island still doth smile ‡‡Amid the boiling water ;
For, on its crags, with nimble feet, ‡‡Like frighten’d deer I darted,
While downward, on its course so fleet,
As porpoises at sea retreat
Toward the storm — so Death to greet, ‡‡That boat flew as we parted.
Source: E. Curtiss Hine. The Haunted Barque, and Other Poems. Auburn, NY: J.C. Derby & Co., 1848
In the preface Hine wrote: “Most of the following Poems were composed at sea, while the Author was attached to an American Frigate cruising in the Pacific Ocean, to while away the tedious hours — the monotony and ennui of a life on board a ship of war.”
Ah, how ceaseless the rounds which, in darkness and gloom,
Thou hast made in the noisy confines of thy tomb, ‡‡‡‡‡Since the whirlpool so great, ‡‡‡‡‡Like a maelstrom of fate, ‡‡‡‡‡Did fiercely surround thee. ‡‡‡‡‡Drew downward and drowned thee. ‡‡‡‡‡Thou shrieked but none heard thee. ‡‡‡‡‡It beat thee and stirred thee, ‡‡‡‡‡Despoiled thee of breath, ‡‡‡‡‡And whirled thee to death.
Rising up, sinking down, with a thundering sound,
Thou art lashed by its fury around and around. ‡‡‡‡‡Now to sight thou art lost ; ‡‡‡‡‡Like a bubble art tossed ‡‡‡‡‡By the torrent’s strong clasp, ‡‡‡‡‡By the raging wave’s grasp, ‡‡‡‡‡Ever round and around, ‡‡‡‡‡Whilst the thundering sound ‡‡‡‡‡Ringeth still on deaf ears, ‡‡‡‡‡As it did ere you drowned.
Who, alas, were thy friends who must mourn thy sad fate ?
And how many are made, by thy death, desolate ?
Idle questions we ask, for we never shall know
Who was tossed by these waves, or in depths thrust below, ‡‡‡‡‡Now so fast and now slow,
As the wild gleaming whirlpool compels thee to go ; ‡‡‡‡‡Now a hand, or a foot ‡‡‡‡‡Close incased in a boot, ‡‡‡‡‡But a glimpse of a face —
So quickly it vanished — all too quickly to trace
Or to search out its features. Oh, terrible jest !
It is said, after death, that the body finds rest ;
Finds rest ! Seest thou thine ? It is whirling about
From the great seething caldron no more to get out.
Didst e’er fancy a fate like to this — that thou must
Be beaten and pounded, as ’twere hastened to dust, ‡‡‡‡‡With a din and a roar ‡‡‡‡‡Like the cannon’s outpour ? ‡‡‡‡‡For an instant didst think, ‡‡‡‡‡As thou stoodst on the brink
And looked on the rapids, that whene’er thou wert dead
They would grind thee to dust for Niagara’s bed ? ‡‡‡‡‡For it will not be long ‡‡‡‡‡Ere the eddying throng —
Waves we read of in story and picture in song —
Fiercely dash thee to pieces with shriek or deep groan —
Even droppings of water will wear away stone—
They will rend thy limp limbs, and will tear them apart ;
Will reach to thy vitals ; they will pluck out thy heart, ‡‡‡‡‡Until no one can see ‡‡‡‡‡What resemblance there be ‡‡‡‡‡Or a vestige in thee ‡‡‡‡‡Of a being who once was a mortal like me !
