Hut on Goat Island Used By Francis Abbott. the Hermit of Niagara, from 1829-1831. Sketch by C. Breckinridge Porter
It was the leafy month of June,
And joyous Nature, all in tune, ‡‡With wreathing buds was drest,
As toward Niagara‘s fearful side ‡‡A youthful stranger prest;
His ruddy cheek was blanched with awe
And scarce he seemed his breath to draw, ‡‡While bending o‘er its brim,
He marked its strong, unfathomed tide, ‡‡And heard its thunder-hymn.
His measured week too quickly fled,
Another, and another sped,
And soon the summer rose decayed,
The moon of autumn sank in shade;
Years filled their circle, brief and fair,
Yet still the enthusiast lingered there, ‡‡Till winter hurled its dart:
For deeper round his soul was wove
A mystic chain of quenchless love,
That would not let him part. Continue reading “The Hermit of the Falls by Lydia Huntley Sigourney”→
My spirit grieves to say, Farewell to thee,
Oh beautiful and glorious!
Thou dost robe
Thyself in mantle of the coloured mist,
Most lightly tinged, and exquisite as thought,
Decking thy forehead with a crown of gems
Woven by God‘s right hand.
Hadst thou but wrapped
Thy brow in clouds, and swept the blinding mist
In showers upon us, it had been less hard
To part from thee. But there thou art, sublime
In noon-day splendour, gathering all thy rays
Unto their climax, green, and fleecy white,
And changeful tinture, for which words of man
Have neither sign nor sound, until to breathe
Farewell in agony. For we have roamed
Beside thee, at our will, and drawn thy voice
Into our secret soul, and felt how good
Thus to be here, until we half implored,
While long in wildering ecstasy we gazed,
To build us tabernacles, and behold
Always thy majesty.
Fain would we dwell
Here at thy feet, and be thy worshipper,
And from the weariness and dust of earth
Steal evermore away. Yea, were it not
That many a care doth bind us here below,
And in each care, a duty, like a flower,
Thorn-hedged, perchance, yet fed with dews of heaven,
And in each duty, an enclosed joy,
Which like a honey-searching bee doth sing, —
And were it not, that ever in our path
Spring up our planted seeds of love and grief,
Which we must watch, and bring their perfect fruit
Into our Master‘s garner, it were sweet
To linger here, and be thy worshipper,
Until death‘s footstep broke this dream of life.
Source: Sigourney, Lydia H. Scenes In My Native Land. London: W. Tweedie, 1844. p. 236-237.
Early View of the Niagara River Whirlpool, from a Copper Negative. Photo Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library“It was a Sabbath of the Soul”;
I heard the distant cataract roll
Its choral anthem high,
Whilst from the forest’s deep repose
A breath of mingled fragrance rose,
Like incense to the sky.
Its azure dome was o’er my head,
The green leaves started at my tread,
As if disturbed in prayer;
‘T was nature’s worship — we alone
Could jar its harp-strings — not a tone
But breathed in concert there.
I saw, below my verdant seat,
The swift Niagara at my feet,
As in a prison bound;
A rocky bed, with graceful bend
And narrow outlets at each end,
Encircled it around.
While the proud rapids seem to pause
Indignantly to view the cause
Of their unwont delay —
In solemn majesty, they turned,
Lingering, as if themselves they spurned,
In durance thus to stay.
In circling eddies round and round,
I saw the careless driftwood bound,
And watched it on its way,
Borne gayly on the rapids’ crest,
Till on the water-giant’s breast,
The passive victim lay.
Within the whirlpool’s false embrace,
Condemned with never-ceasing pace
Their aimless course to run,
Without a hope or goal in view,
An endless journey to pursue,
Beginning, never done.
Yet viewlessly these links confine,
Brighter than diamond sparks they shine,
And merrily they flow,
Whilst each fair shore stands smiling by,
And still the dancing waters fly,
To music, as they go.
And then I felt like one who dreams,
And all his airy visions deems
Realities of life;
The senseless logs like men were seen, —
A metamorphosis, I ween,
Not much with truth at strife.
For is not human life a stream,
Whose rapids (cares and pleasures) seem
To us but infant’s play,
Till, into passion’s current hurled,
Amid its restless vortex whirled,
We chase the hours away?
What are the chains the hands have wrought?
The strongest chain is made of thought,
The poet said of yore;
Spellbound by habit, thus we see,
The ocean of eternity,
Yet seek its bliss no more.
O would we nature’s lessons read,
And draw our pure, exalted creed
From her celestial lore,
All earth would then be hallowed ground,
In every stream some virtue found
The spirit’s woes to cure.
Source: Myron T. Pritchard, comp. Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1901.
Originally published in Susan Hill Todd’s Occasional Poems: a New Year’s Offering. Boston: W. Crosby and H. P. Nichols, 1851
Portrait of Rafael Pombo, 1833-1912Dedicada en prenda de respetuosa admiración y de profundo reconocimiento a la señora María Juana Christie de Serrano.
¡Ahí estás otra vez. . . ! El mismo hechizo
que años ha conocí, monstruo de gracia,
blanco, fascinador, enorme, augusto,
sultán de los torrentes,
muelle y sereno en tu sin par pujanza.
¡Ahí estás siempre el Niágara! Perenne
en tu extático trance, en ese vértigo
de voluntad tremenda, sin cansarte
nunca de ti, ni el hombre de admirarte.
¡Cómo cansarse! La belleza activa,
la siempre viva, porque siempre pura,
no puede fatigar. Hija perfecta
sin medio humano, del excelso fiat
que perpetuaron leyes inviolables
en su incesante acción; mimada hermana
del firmamento, de la luz, del aire;
huésped no expulsado del edén perdido;
esta hermosura es creación constante
y original, donde trasciende el soplo
de su autor soberano. Algo nos dice
que allí está Dios: el néctar de embeleso
y de reparación que a un tiempo mana.
Al contemplarla, en nuestro fondo bullen
los dormitados gérmenes divinos,
cual hierve al sol el ánima viviente
de la naturaleza; y surge ansioso
el amor de familia, el de la eterna
e indisoluble; y como al mar la gota
emancipada al fin de térreos lazos,
como del pecho de la madre el niño,
mudos de íntimo gozo nos prendemos
en comunión de eternidad con ella.
¿Podrá Dios fatigar? ¡Ah! en lo que hastía
hay encanto letal, triste principio
de inercia, hostil a Dios, germen de muerte,
gangrena de las almas secuestradas
de su raudal vivífico...
Mas ¿dónde
mi mente descendió? Llámala al punto.
¡Oh Niágara! y en ti la imagen vea
de las almas triunfantes; mire al héroe
sublime en su martirio; al genio mire
sereno en la conciencia de su fuerza.
Distráeme, diviérteme, museo
de cataratas, fábrica de nubes;
mar desfondado al peso de tus hondas;
columnas que un omnipotente Alcides
descolgó del Olimpo, entre dos vastos
Mediterráneos, piélagos de un mundo.
Continue reading "En El Niágara by Rafael Pombo"→
Oh, could I gaze forever on thy face,
Unwearied still, thou matchless waterfall,
Whose twining spells of majesty and grace
My ardent sense bewilder and enthrall!
In all my moods thy charms‘ puissant sway
Enforce my will their master-spell to own;
My heart leaps at thy voice — or grave or gay —
And every chord is vibrant to thy tone.
So many years I have come back to stand,
With reverent awe, before thy glorious shrine —
So close and long thy lineaments I‘ve scanned —
It seemed thou should‘st grow something less divine.
I know thy face, its shifting glooms and smiles,
As cloud or sun upon thy bosom lies;
Thy wrathful guise, thy witching rainbow wiles
Can wake no more for me the sweet surprise.
I know thy voice — its terror and its glee
Have in my ear so oft their changes rung;
Nor forest winds nor anthems of the sea
Speak to my soul with more familiar tongue.
My feet have scaled thy storm-scarred battlements,
And pressed the moss most emerald with thy tears;
And still profaned thy lucent caverns, whence
The neophyte comes pale with ghostly fears. Continue reading “Niagara In Spring by William Carey Richards”→
