How sad, my God, to linger here, ‡‡‘Mid all these works of thine.
Alone, bereft of all I’ve loved, ‡‡And joys that once were mine!
Loud anthems cheer those crested waves, ‡‡And kiss the floods below;
Where hidden thunder smites the rocks, ‡‡And bursts in ceaseless praise,
Of HIM who fix’d the rainbow there, ‡‡To mark its brightest days!
Oh! where ‘mid all this radiant joy, ‡‡Can sorrow hope to live,
Deserted by those rays of Peace, ‡‡Which Thou alone can’st give?
* * * *
Cold, cold, and blank, that once bright home, ‡‡Where now, in lonely hours,
Love hovers round the vacant chair, ‡‡And haunts the silent bowers;
And Hopes once cherish’d there, have chang’d, ‡‡To Tears in sorrow shed,
Reflecting back the scenes I lov’d, ‡‡Ere that sweet spirit fled!
Kindred scenes, my GOD are these, ‡‡Which now around me lie,
Ever whisp’ring ― “cease poor soul, ‡‡WEtoo have yet to die!”
September 21, 1871
Source: Ridgway, Robert (ed.) The Canadian Magazine vol. 1 – July to December 1871. Toronto: Irving, Flint & Co., 1871. p. 295
A crowd flowed onto the Suspension Bridge. Another onto Prospect Point. A third onto the Three Sisters Islands —all along the railings in the gorge. Across the river, a thousand more poured down to Table Rock. And up the shore, a hundred others— men, women and children— stood by the dock at Truesdale’s cottage, waiting to see me off. There were no clouds that morning, and so much light it seemed ten suns were whirling as I stepped into the skiff—in a tossing sea of handkerchiefs— and waved to them (while Russell blew a kiss) amidst the general hurrah.
Then we set out—with Truesdale straining the tiller against the single, headstrong sail— and Billy Holleran, a strong, strapping boy, manning the furious oars. The barrel rode upright behind us, bucking to run its course —and was jerked back to correction by the stern instruction of our rope. A quarter way out, we stopped on an island where I changed my clothes: no hat or dress now, but a blouse left open at the throat, and a skirt hemmed just below the knee. I made them turn away while I backed in through the rim— then they fastened down the lid, rolled me to the shore, turned me upright— pushed me in.
Four boats now. And behind the first, the towed barrel, weighed down with me— yet still intractable. And in the last, a cameraman recording every stroke as they rowed a mile across to the Point of No Return— where the river starts to churn, and a sailor knows he’d better bend his back —or else go over. There they knocked. And cut the rope. They must have pulled hard then to turn themselves south, but I went north—(a half mile more before I’d reach the brink). I careened and spun. Once it tossed me clear up out of the water. I went unbidden—and unwelcome—where it rushed me.
I wished I could have watched from some place overhead and heard the voices racing down the shore— passing on the message— dock to island, island to rock, rock to bridge: “She’s coming!” I would have liked to see them turn their heads— wave after wave, as each new group heard the murmur and craned their necks to catch a glimpse. I’d have liked to see the trolley racing down the shore, and the incline railway rushing down the gorge —so the ones who’d waved from Truesdale’s dock could be standing on the rocks below the Falls, looking up—to see if anything would come.
from Queen of the Mist, a novel in verse about the first person to go over Niagara in a barrel
In nature, all acts that have gone before
Leave traces, record marks, clues, tracks in store
That many persons pause to ponder o’er.
From inside outwards was the earth’s crust made,
The hollows caved in, the high mountains stayed,
Encircling flames produced the waters vast,
And time and seasons scaled things to the last.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡II
Would thirty thousand years of effort score
On your astonishment a mark, or more?
Then hearken to a tale of work replete
With action in rain, sunshine, frost and sleet.
The speaker is NIAG’RA RIVER, old,
Clear, turbulent, odd, scenic giver, bold.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡III
With strength unshorn by time, and white of brow,
But not from years, I am the center now
For myriads that travel from far and
Near to view my Falls as the cascade grand.
My life is in the cycle of the rain,
My strength from waters the Great Lakes retain.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡IV
The first to view the drainage plan, of three
Such large lakes flowing into Erie free,
Thence through me to a fifth and on to sea,
Said, “This is quite rare and not apt to be.”
Important link am I, from fourth to last,
The present scanned, the future viewed, or past.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡V
The deep flow of my misting Horseshoe Falls,
Out does thin water leaping from side walls.
The view and sound effects are rapturous,
The roar, thump grind and spray continuous.
At what they sense, the millions gaze appalled,
Awondering, breath indrawn, stilled, enthralled. Continue reading “The River Niagara by Donald Lashelle”→
Formed when the oceans were fashioned, when all the world ‡‡was a workshop;
Loud roared the furnace fires, and tall leapt the smoke ‡‡from volcanoes,
Scooped were round bowls for lakes, and grooves for the ‡‡sliding of rivers,
Whilst, with a cunning hand, the mountains were linked ‡‡together.
Then through the day-dawn, lurid with cloud, and rent ‡‡by forked lightning,
Striken by earthquake beneath, above by the rattle of ‡‡thunder,
Sudden the clamour was pierced by a voice, deep-lunged ‡‡and portentous —
Thine, O Niagara, crying: “Now is created completed!”
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡II.
Millions of cup-like blossoms, brimming with dew and with ‡‡rain-drops,
Mingle their tributes together to form one slow-trickling ‡‡brooklet;
Thousands of brooklets and rills, leaping down from their ‡‡home in the uplands,
Grow to a smooth, blue river, serene and flowing in ‡‡silence.
Hundreds of smooth, blue rivers, flashing afar o’er the ‡‡prairies,
Darkening ‘neath forests of pine, deep drowning the reeds ‡‡in the marshes,
Cleaving with noiseless sledge the rocks red-crusted with ‡‡copper,
Circle at last to one common goal, the Mighty Sea-Water.
Lo! to the northward outlying, wide glimmers the stretch ‡‡of the Great Lake,
White-capped and sprinkled with foam, that tumbles its ‡‡bellowing breakers
Landward on beaches of sand, and in hiding-holes hollow ‡‡with thunder,
Landward where plovers frequent, with the wolf and the ‡‡westering bison. Continue reading “Niagara by George Houghton”→
Reinterment Services Held at Drummond Hill Cemetery, October 17, 1891. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
(Suggested by the burial, October 17th, 1891, of the remains of
some of the British forces who fought in this memorable battle.)
Three-quarters of a century
Have passed away like snow,
Since Drummond and Riall stood firm
And fought the furious foe;
When round our gallant fellows
The bullets hissed like rain,
And heaped with dead and dying men
The field of Lundy‘s Lane.
The twilight of the summer eve
Was hovering in the sky,
When rose upon the listening air
The British battle-cry;
Then through the trembling heavens surged
The roar of giant strife,
For thrice two thousand armed men
Were battling there for life.
Yet still above that fearful din
Of battle‘s mad career
Was heard from throbbing British throats
The British battle cheer.
All through that night till midnight‘s hour
Was on Time‘s trembling lip,
Our gallant fellows at the cup
Of bitter death did sip.
They cared not if each moment drained
The drops of faltering life,
They fought for home and native land,
For mother, child and wife.
Not theirs the fight for conquest,
Not theirs the fight for gold,
But theirs the fight for freedom‘s right
Their fathers gained of old.
Thus with stern hearts and steady hands
They marched into the fray,
And there our bloodiest battle
Was fought and won that day.
Bloodiest! aye, six thousand men
At dusk stood on the field:
Two thousand dead or dying fell
Before the day was sealed.
Yes, o‘er their grave let banners wave,
Let trumpets moan their funeral note;
God in His might looked down that night —
Looked, and the wrong he smote.
They fought for home and native land,
For mother, child and wife,
And recked not if each moment drained
The dregs of faltering life.
They fought for home and native land,
They held the foe at bay;
They fell, but though they fell, they stand
In honor‘s ranks today.
They gave their blood to save the flag,
To keep the land from shame;
To God be praise for victory,
To them eternal fame!
And though we hope that ne‘er again
Such strife may shake our land,
But pray these sister nations may
Give each a friendly hand;
Yet while one drop of British blood
Swells a Canadian vein,
Our hearts must thrill when we recall
The fight of Lundy‘s Lane.
Source: Kevin McCabe, ed. The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines, Ont.: Blarney Stone Books, 1999.
Originally published: James Alexander Tucker. Poems. Toronto: Briggs, 1904.
