“It is announced that Oscar Wilde was also disappointed with Niagara”
Oscar Wilde photographed by Napoleon Sarony, 1882. Courtesy of Library of Congress
Universe, you are a failure, ‡‡You’re one masterly mistake;
Firmamental glories, pale your ‡‡Fires, and played-out old earth, quake.
You may teem with hidden treasure, ‡‡But we won’t be reconciled,
Since you seem to take a pleasure ‡‡In disappointing Wilde.
In the lake, as in the ocean, ‡‡Torrents’ rush, and waves that roll,
Failing to impart emotion ‡‡To his fine fastidious soul;
You may just as well, Dame Nater, ‡‡Shut up shop, to draw it mild,
As let cataract and crater ‡‡Go disappointing Wilde.
Or, perhaps you’d best endeavour ‡‡To improve your old design,
Make catastrophes more clever, ‡‡And phenomena more fine.
Dye Niagara rose-madder, ‡‡Have the wide Atlantic biled:
Then he may feel somewhat gladder, ‡‡The disappointed Wilde.
When they meet his pensive gaze, oh, ‡‡Take a ‘cute scene-painter’s hints,
Add ten leagues to Chimborazo, ‡‡To the rainbow ten new tints;
Let Mount Etna vomit lava ‡‡With a monster saucepan tiled,
So he will but murmur, Brava!” ‡‡The disappointed Wilde.
Then you might transpose each season, ‡‡Make the roses oust the snows,
Give the Tory party reason, ‡‡And the Irish one repose;
But, perhaps, the multiplying ‡‡Of the dollar-heap he’s piled,
Would be best for satisfying, ‡‡Not disappointing, Wilde.
Originally published in Fun magazine, March 8, 1882, in response to Wilde’s widely quoted comment that “Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life” – quoted in Carr, Jamie M. Niagaras of Ink: Famous Writers at the Falls. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2020. p. 50.
Monument to the Battle of Lundy’s Lane in Drummond Hill Cemetery, Niagara Falls
‘Tis a sweet September evening, and the sun is sinking low;
In a hundred gorgeous colors the Canadian forests show,
Streamlets murmur through the valley, song-birds warble in the trees,
There is glory in the sunset, and there’s perfume in the breeze.
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
“Tell us, grandpa,” said young Charley, as his wooden sword he swung,
“Tell us of the famous battle that you fought when you were young;
How that scar came on your forehead; how it is you were not slain;
For the folks say you did bravely at the battle of Lundy’s Lane.”
Gaily smiled the tall old farmer as he stroked the golden head
Of his fair and favored grandchild. “You’re a tease, my boy,” he said
“But if Angus cease his drumming and if Will from noise refrain,
And if Alice sit beside me, I shall tell of Lundy’s Lane.”
Silent all, they crowded ’round him, when the veteran thus began: —
“I belonged to the ‘Glengarries,’ true and loyal every man:
At Niagara we joined Drummond, on the morning of the fight,
And with the Royal Scots were posted upon the British right.
“Ah! I never shall forget it, ’twas an evening in July,
Not a ripple stirred the river, not a cloud obscured the sky,
Swallows skimmed along the ridges, cattle browsed upon the plain,
Where, but thirty minutes after, lay the wounded and the slain.
“How the fight began I know not, but the sun had just gone down,
When the Yankees charged our centre, with their leaders Scott and Brown;
‘Steady boys,’ cried our Commander, ‘when you fire at all, aim low.’—
“We could see (so close they pressed us) their fierce eyes and faces pale;
We could hear their execrations when they found their efforts fail;
When they bay’netted our gunners, other gunners took their place;
Breast to breast we fought each other, though we were of kindred race.
Like the billows of the ocean they came on with mighty force;
As the rocks receive the billows, so we checked them in their course;
And our shot and shell ploughed through them, when defeated they fell back,
Making lanes in their battalions, leaving ruin in their track.
“Light departed, but the combat flashed and thundered all the same,
And the muskets sent forth volleys, and the cannon sheets of flame;
As the hour wore on the fighting grew more desperate than before,
And the terrors of the battle hushed loud Niagara’s roar.
On came Scott, who threw his columns ‘gainst our front and on our flanks,
But our Drummond, ever wary, met the shock with serried ranks;
On came Brown with levelled bay’net through the smoke and through the night.
We could see his steel line gleaming like a streak of morning light.
“Scott and Brown and the valiant Miller, they were baffled one by one,
And their bravest fell in hundreds, with the chiefs who led them on.
Still the odds were telling ‘gainst us (we were fighting one to three),
Till the cheers of fresh re’nforcements gave us hope of victory.
“Now a lull came in the battle, and the armies drew their breath,
And the moon from out the low’ring clouds shone on the fields of death.
Oh! my children! you could never, never wish for war again,
Had you seen that field of carnage—heard the groans of wounded men.
They were strewn along the valley, they were bleeding everywhere,
While the dying cried for water in the depths of their despair—
‘Here am I,’ mocked near Niagara, with its deep resounding roar;
‘Here am I, a mighty volume, falling water evermore!’
“Havoc paused but for a moment—soon the foe he charged again,
Making one last desperate effort, but in vain, ’twas all in vain;
For, though numbers sore oppressed us, still our hearts and steel were true,
And we kept our ground, as firmly rooted as the sturdy maple grew.
“Threw we then his shattered columns down the thrice ensanguined slope.
‘See the moon uprise,’ said Drummond, ‘now my boys no longer grope.
Charge!’ Oh how we cheered, and charged them till they broke and fled amain,
And they left us in possession of the field of Lundy’s Lane.”
“But the scar, Grandpa,” said Angus, “Tell us how you got the scar?”
“From a Yankee’s flashing sabre, ’twas an accident of war.”
“But they say, Grandpa, you killed him,” little Alice, breathless, cried:
“It is getting late, my children, let us home,” the veteran sighed.
Source: Morden, James C. Historical Monuments and Observatories of Lundy’s Lane and Queenston Heights. Niagara Falls: The Lundy’s Lane Historical Society, 1929.
At head of title: The following poem was lately discovered in an old scrapbook.
Blondin Crossing Niagara Falls on a Tightrope by Joseph Silveira, ca. 1859-1860. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.
I salute you, O Frenchman, fellow-republican,
Crosser of chasms, traverser of rivers,
Walking on a rope of hempen fiber
Above the roaring thunder of mighty Niagara.
A human miracle over a natural wonder,
You walk step by step on the tautened rope
Above the spume, the spray, the ever-rising vapor
Of the cataract’s incessantly tumbling torrent.
On a filament, balanced between America and Canada,
You perform mid-crossing an impudent somersault
Over a cumulus cloud of spray-water rising.
Small man with balancing-pole, in circus costume,
You wear a blindfold and saunter over the abyss
In the watery smells of the misty air.
You cannot hear the shouts and cheers of the thousands
Watching your nimble footwork over precipitous vistas,
As we applaud the magnitude of your achievements
Above the magnificent drop of the roaring waters.
O Blondin, bridger of chasms,
I extol your unique intrepidity
As I salute Niagara afresh in this song.
The torrent unabashed, unabated, rushes headlong to crash
Into the tumult of the diluvian waterfall,
A half-drowned rainbow spectral in all that spray.
Above it you walk on a tightrope and all the while
Blue Erie moves towards Ontario
Over mighty Niagara falling, night and day.
First published in his collection Voice Mail, 2002
This poem was inspired by the painting by Silveira at the top of the page.
Poet Duncan Forbes is the author of seven collections, the most recent of which is Human Time (2020) His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies and have been published by Faber, Secker and Enitharmon who brought out a Selected Poems in 2009.
Born and educated in Oxford, he has taught English Language and Literature for many years and – apart from writing poetry – is also interested in painting and the visual arts. Duncan has written essays and articles on a variety of subjects.
Are you a poet living in the Niagara area? There is a new group called the Niagara Poetry Guild for poets to get together, critique each other’s poetry, and talk poetry in general. They meet online using Meetup on the second & fourth Mondays of the month. Please feel free to contact them.
