Tag: poetry

Martyrs of Progress by Clarence Arthur Dowling Thompson

thompson martyrs
Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial With the Names 0f 137 Who Died Building the Canals

To the Workers Who Met Death On Canal Construction

It was inspiring, grand, impressive !
An event for the great to behold,
When thousands on thousands witnessed
The leviathan entrance unfold !

Long are the approach of the hour,
From areas distant and near,
Came eager, expectant people,
To gaze from the bank, tier on tier.

The foremost voice of our country,
Through receptive air channels hurled,
Cried forth the great shipway’s importance
To an audience girdling the world.

About what were some of us thinking―
We who stood on the grassy banks―
As scintillant invocations
Inspired the close-serried ranks?

We were loved ones, friends and companions
Of men crashed, or hurled, to their doom.
By the sudden snap of a tackle . . .
Collapse of a defective boom—

We stood on the sward and remembered . . .
Yes, we heard suave sentences flow.
But we knew—despite the orations—
To whom highest tribute should go.

There were those of the people present . . .
Remembering . . . stifled a sob
For the hundred and more of workers
Who went to their death “on the job.”

Originally published in The St. Catharines Standard, Monday August 8, 1932, p4.; published just after the new canal was opened.
Source: Dennis Gannon, 2017

Niagara Falls by C.D. Onofrio

onofrio niagara falls
Niagara Falls in Winter. Photo by Andrew Porteus

Niagara Falls in the winter time. The empty rooms of
skyscraper hotels facing the river that cuts the ridge of the
rock. The waterfall moans for miles through the streets, the
only sound over the fresh mute of snowfall. The lights of
the mid-way; fun houses, freak shows, horror houses; all lit
up and no one to see. Hatchet men, monsters, ghouls,
having staring matches with wax celebrities, and rock stars
and criminals. And me, sitting in stone. My breathe the only
thought that fills the air.

Source: The Author, 2017

On the Erection of a Monument On the Battlefield of Lundy’s Lane by Edward W. Miller

miller
Monument to the Battle of Lundy’s Lane. Photo by Chantal Cameron, courtsesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Dear to a land is the name of its heroes,
They who have given their lives for her honor,
Who in the danger and turmoil of battle
Have fought and have died for the land of their fathers.
What is more worthy of lasting remembrance
Than the deeds of our heroes, whose patriot spirit
This day we are praising?  Let memory undying
Hold green in our minds the tale of their glory.
Tall be the monument raised to their mem’ry,
Let it be wreathed with the flowers of vict’ry;
Firm be it built as a symbol forever
Of Canada’s glory in years that have vanished.
For here where ye tread with your footsteps so eager,
Where rises the pillar so proud to the heavens,
Lay strewn with the dead who had died for their country.
Treble their number the foes that assailed them.
Rank over rank poured the enemy’s forces
Shot after shot belched forth from the cannon,
Thinning their numbers and strewing the meadow
With wounded and dying, whose groanings of anguish
And prayers for relief rose sad on the night air,
And mixed with the roar, dull-murmuring, distant,
Where Niagara rolls on her billows of water. Continue reading “On the Erection of a Monument On the Battlefield of Lundy’s Lane by Edward W. Miller” →

The Over-Song of Niagara by John Daniel Logan

Why stand ye, nurslings of Earth, before my gates,
    Mouthing aloud my glory and my thrall?
Are ye alone the playthings of the fates,
    And only ye o'ershadowed with a pall?
Turn from this spectacle of strength unbound —
    This fearful force that spends itself in folly!
Turn ye and hark above the organ-sound
    My Over-song of Melancholy!

        "I rush and roar
        Along my shore, —
            I go sweeping, thundering on;
        Yet my days, O man,
        Are but as a span,
            And soon shall my strength be gone!
        My times are measured
        In whose hand I am treasured,
            (Think not of thy little day!)
        Though I rush and roar
        Along my shore,
            I am passing away —   
                Passing away!

        "The sun and the moon
        They too shall soon
            Sink back into eternal Night :
        All earth and the sea
        Shall cease to be,
            And the stars shall melt in their flight!
        Their times are measured
        In whose hand they are treasured,
            (Think not of thy little day!)
        The celestial throng
        Chant my Over-song, —
            ' Passing away, —
                Passing away!' "

Then stand not, nurslings of Earth, before my gates,
    Mouthing aloud my glory and my thrall :
Not ye alone are playthings of the fates,
    Nor only ye o'ershadowed with a pall!

        But hark to my song
        As I sweep along,
            Thundering my organ-tone —
        "O vain is all Life,
        O vain is all Strife,
            And fruitless the Years that have flown!
        As the Worst; so the Best —
        All haste to their rest
            In the void of the Primal Unknown."

Source: Logan, John Daniel. Songs of the Makers of Canada and Other Homeland Lyrics. Toronto: William Briggs, 1911.

Drummond: Indomitable Soldier by John Daniel Logan

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General Sir Gordon Drummond

FROM SAFFRON dawn that lit the morning sky logan drummond
Until the moon passed, blanching at the sight
Of fearful slaughter crying for respite,
Thy faithful forces heard thy battle cry
Above the stubborn, fierce, tumultuous sway
Of weltering lines. Then thy undaunted heart
Sustained thy heroes in their awful part
And glorified the sanguinary fray.

To us yon battleground is as a fane,
A holy place, a sacrificial spot
To thee and thy Canadian host who wrought
Immortal warrior deeds at Lundy’s Lane;
And thine own glory, Drummond, gleameth far,
Undimmed and constant as the purest star.

Source: Logan, John Daniel. Songs of the Makers of Canada and Other Homeland Lyrics.  Toronto: William Briggs, 1911.

Click to see more poems about the Battle of Lundy’s Lane and other Poems of the War of 1812 in Niagara