Each night
the colored lights
dance in the water’s spray.
The rainbows and Niagara’s mists
make love.
Source: The author, 2001.
©2001 Larry Pace
Niagara Falls at Night by Larry Pace
Tag: poetry
As Falls Niagara by Melinda Nowikowski
Buzzed on red wine
I watched
Niagara fall over your shoulder.
Premature showdown
In Honeymoon Town.
The first time we took our clothes off
It was to Monty Python,
Not Simply Red
Not Marvin Gaye.
“How to protect yourself
From an assailant
Carrying fresh fruit”…
For months I couldn’t bring myself
To tell you this,
When we made love that night
I heard Eric Idle ask,
“What if I’m assaulted by a
Man carrying a pointed stick?”
Nor has much changed since.
Source: The Nonelist Anthology, 2001.
Niagara Above the Cataract by Clara Jessup Moore
River of banks and woods and waters green,
With all of beauty to attract the eye,
Why leaps my heart, as past thy shores we fly?
Art thou not quiet as an infant’s dream,
Pure as its thoughts, unruffled as its brow
When circled by its mother’s arms in sleep,
While o’er it she doth still her vigils keep?
Then wherefore leaps my heart so wildly now?
Hark to that roar, deep as the thunder’s tone,
And in the distance see the sun’s last ray
Falling on clouds of never-ceasing spray.
In its wild beatings is my heart alone?
Thou glidest on to meet that battling flood,
Fearless as warrior to the field of blood!
Source: Moore, Clara Jessup. Miscellaneous Poems; Stories for Children; The Warden’s Tale; and Three Eras in a Life. 2nd ed. Porter & Coates, 1875
Note: Moore used a variety of pseudonyms. This poem has also been published under the name Mrs. C. J. Moreton
Niagara Below the Cataract by Clara Jessup Moore
Within a temple‘s towering walls I stand ̶
A temple vast; the heaven is its dome.
No corniced crag was hewn by human hand
Nor by it wrought the tracery of foam;
The inlaid floor of emerald and pearl
Heaves at the hidden organ‘s thunderous peal,
While round and up the clouds of incense curl,
Shrouding the chancel where the billows kneel.
Ah! bow your heads. It is a fitting place
For solemn thought, for deep and earnest prayer;
For here the finger of our God I trace,
Beneath, above, around me, everywhere;
He hollowed out this grand and mighty nave,
And robed his altar with the ocean wave!
Source: Moore, Clara Jessup. Miscellaneous Poems; Stories for Children; The Warden’s Tale; and Three Eras in a Life. 2nd ed. Porter & Coates, 1875
Note: Moore used a variety of pseudonyms. This poem has also been published under the name Mrs. C. J. Moreton
Niagara by Martin Farquhar Tupper
I longed for Andes all around, and Alps,
Hoar kings and priests of Nature robed in snow,
Throned as for judgement in a solemn row,
With icy mitres on their giant scalps,
Dumb giants frowning at the strife below.
I longed for the sublime. Thou art too fair,
Too fair, Niagara, to be sublime!
In calm, slow strength thy mighty floods do flow
And stand a cliff of cataracts in the air,
Yet all too beauteous Water, bride of Time!
Veiled in soft mists and cinctured by the bow,
Thy pastoral charms may fascinate the sight,
But have not power to set my soul aglow,
Raptured by fear and wonder and delight.
Source: Kevin McCabe, ed. The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines, Ont. : Blarney Stone Books, 1999.
Published in Martin Farquhar Tupper. Three Hundred Sonnets. London: Arthur Hall, Virtue, and Co., 1860.
Also published: G. W. Holley, ed. Niagara: Its History and Geology, Incidents and Poetry. New York, 1872.
Also published in Johnson, Richard L. (ed). Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898.