Tag: poetry

An Indian Cave at Ne-a-ga-ra by Evelyn M. Watson

cave
Interior View of Milk Cave, Also Known as Buttermilk Cave, on the Niagara River. New York Power Authority. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Here is the place of lores,
Of heroes that never return,
The site of sagas and Mysteries
Of tales before old Histories
Of council-fires that burn
Hid from the pound of the waters where the
‡‡‡‡Cataract trembles and pours.

Here in the dusky quiet,
Cadenced with birds and tides —
Here in the forest’s circling mood
The sense of truth-in-solitude —
It’s here that legend hides —
And stones and forests and cliffs shut out the
‡‡‡‡world’s tumultous riot.

Only the echoes remain
Like the thought-of-a-thought —
Only the whisper of falls
Like the talk, (in their council walls
Of pine,) together brought,
Discussing their people’s strange plight with
‡‡‡‡Stoic indifference to pain.

Day-hours are lived in the strife
Night-hours are spent in the Essence,
Wildly the waters shall lave,
Silences seal the great cave —
Its fate is a lost evanescence,
(Oh, moment magnificent with thought of primitive life).

Source:  Evelyn M. Watson. Poems of the Niagara Frontier.  New York: Dean & Company, 1929.

See other poems by Watson

The Eternal Blunder by Al Knobloch

 

 

knobloch
Photo of the Horseshoe Falls, Prospect Point Observation Tower, and the Rainbow Bridge, which inspired this poem. Courtesy of Al Knobloch

The river Niagara flows placidly by
With waters polluted by you and by I
By seeping landfills and chemical pits too
A bane to two countries; historically quite new
But then its pace quickens as tourists arrive
Car fumes rise up to the gulls as they fly
As over the brink suicides take the plunge
While after their cameras onlookers do lunge
In springtime, in summer, and then autumn too
Millions converge on this vast human zoo
The hotels keep rising, no zenith in sight
Parking is crazy, the prices a fright
The Falls is encircled with commercial lust
Most ways of our fathers are left in the dust
Casinos proliferate, lounge lizards croon
Ya gotta admit, it’s a commercial boon
Growth exponential, the Maids multiply
Soon to morph into an endless supply
Now worldwide attention is focused right here
Is it due to the Falls, or due to the fear
Mother Nature eclipsed by human nature alive
“Will he really make it, will he survive?”
Dollars flow in, millions will spy
Still spray reaches up to the gulls who still fly
Oh where is the peace, where is the wonder
The natives sought out before our eternal blunder

Source:  Al Knobloch. Blog post May 29, 2012.  Niagara History and Trivia Facebook Group

This poem is a revised version of a class assignment that Knobloch wrote in high school.

Al Knobloch in front of Prospect Point in Niagara Falls, before its collapse in 1954. Image courtesy of Al Knobloch

 

Niagara Falls by William McClure

mcclure
Picnic in Queen Victoria Park, 1927. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Niagara!   What memories you evoke,
A mecca for all travel-folder folk;
The honeymooners’ lure, and lovers’ pride
Whose name is lauded o’er the countryside.

Here comes the tired and jaded business man
Hot from convention halls; now spick and span;
The busy housewife, proud of all her brood
And cheerful hubby, carrying their food,
The picnic lunch in famed Victoria Park,
Where they, as lovers, often sat at dark.
Now, staid and sober, middle-aged and fat,
They reminisce of other days, and that
First visit to the Falls, where all around
The matrimonial tendency they found.
The younger generation they now scan
And smile to see them follow the same plan.

There, tired old granny, taken for a ride;
Her face aglow with pleasure, like a bride,
Renews again her dreams of former days
When everything seemed rosy in a haze.
The rich, the poor, the famous from all lands
All gather round the work of nature’s hands
To view the famous cascade, glittering bright,
Which of itself provides the power for light.
The roaring torrent as it thunders o’er
And deafens nearby tourists with its roar
Casts a magnetic spell on all around
As thunderous rumbles shake the quivering ground.

But nature works her will remorselessly,
And changes in our time we all can see;
Yet still the cry goes up when pleasure palls,
That come what may, “We MUST go to the Falls.”

Source: Toronto Daily Star, March 31, 1939

According to a column by J.V. McAres in the Globe & Mail, April 14, 1951, McClure wrote more than a thousand poems published in various Canadian newspapers.

Obituary of William McClure, Welland Tribune, November 19, 1955

Rest! by William H. C. Hosmer

hosmer
Cemetery at Fort Niagara, in the midst of a gravestone cleaning project. Image courtesy of New York State Parks


A  few rods from the barrier-gate of Fort Niagara was the burying-ground. It was filled with memorials of the mutability and brevity of human life, and over the portals of entrance was painted, in large and emphatic characters, the word ‘Rest’ — Judge De Veaux.

Earth, upon her ample face,
Boasts no sweeter burial-place
Than a small enclosure green,
Near an ancient fortress seen ;
Mossy head-stones here and there
Names of fallen warriors bear,
But no eulogistic phrase,
Cut on rock, that meets the gaze,
Can our reverence command,
Like that brief inscription grand,
On the portal arch impressed —
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡“Rest!”

River wide, and mighty lake
For the dead an anthem wake,
And with old, forgotten graves
Well comports the wash of waves,
Motto of the hallowed ground
Murmuring with solemn sound ;
Birds that by like spirits pass,
Winds that murmur in the grass,
Seem repeating evermore
That one word the gateway o’er,
Word that haunts a troubled breast—
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡“Rest!”

Pilgrim, for a moment wait
Near the narrow entrance gate,
And one word peruse — no more —
Boldly traced the portals o’er ;
Mortal heart was never stirred
By a more emphatic word ;
One with deeper meaning fraught,
Or the power to quicken thought ;
Sermon, hymn, and funeral lay,
Eloquence the soul to sway,
In four letters are compressed —
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡“Rest!”

Source:  Hosmer, William H.C.  The Poetical Works of William H.C. Hosmer. New York: Redfield, 1854

See casual references to Niagara in other poems by Hosmer

Read about William Howe Cuyler Hosmer

Old Fort Niagara website

I Too Have Seen Thy Ever-Pouring Flood by James Gates Percival

percival
Engraving of James Gates Percival From a Painting by G.W. Flagg


I too have seen thy ever-pouring flood,
Mightiest of cataracts, Niagara!
Have seen thy restless waters rush away,
And on thy beetling rock alone have stood,
And seen the morning sunbeams paint thy spray,
And countless rainbows on thy light mist play;
And I have walked along thy field of blood,
Whereon the free invaders stood at bay,
And, mantled in the shadow of the night,
Infuriate warriors wrestled in the fight,
The pale moon weeping o’er the mortal fray;
And I have gazed, from Queenston’s hallowed height,
On river, lake, and plain, in sunset bright,
Gilt streams, dark woods, blue waves in sweet array:
And hither, as the years shall roll away,
The pilgrim of our land shall fondly hie,
And here the tribute of his heart shall pay,
And kneel before the shrine of God and liberty.

Source:  James Gates Percival.  The Poetical Works of James Gates Percival. Boston:  Ticknor and Fields, 1859.

About James Gates Percival