Tag: religious

Niagara by Willis Gaylord Clark

sublime niagara falls
Willis Gaylord Clark By John Sartain. Image from Hathi Trust

 

 

 

Here speaks the voice of God — let man be dumb,
Nor with his vain aspirings hither come.
That voice impels the hollow-sounding floods,
And like a presence fills the distant woods.
These groaning rocks the Almighty’s finger piled;
For ages here his painted bow has smiled,
Mocking the changes and the chance of time —
Eternal, beautiful, serene, sublime!

Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848

Also Published in the Albany Evening Journal, July 12, 1836, with the note “The following impromtu was inscribed on the Travellers’ Register at Niagara Falls, a few days ago, by the editor of the Philadelphia Gazette.” Selections from The Travellers’ Register were published as the Table Rock Album.

Also published in: Myron T. Pritchard, comp.  Poetry of Niagara. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1901.

Also published in:  Johnson, Richard L. (ed).  Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898.

Also published in: Holley, George W., ed.  The Falls of Niagara.  Baltimore: A.C. Armstrong & Son, 1883

Niagara by Father James B. Dollard

Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church

Incessantly thy waters thus have rolled
    Through the dim aeons of unmeasured Time,
    While God was fashioning His work sublime,
Or ere His sulphurous forges could grow cold!
When Egypt loved Osiris and retold
    His charmed birth from out Nilotic slime,
    When Chaldea read the stars, and Homer's rhyme
Was yet undreamt -- Niagara thundered bold.

So night and day throughout coverging years
    Hoarse voices rose above the hissing spray
        Scaring the lonely Indian on the shore!
These bellowing chasms harbored nameless fears --
    Demons and dragons in contorted play
        Lashing the frightened waters evermore!

Source: Rev. James B. Dollard. Poems. Toronto: The Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada, 1910.

About Father Dollard

Loretto Convent, Niagara Falls by Father James B. Dollard

loretto
Loretto Convent, c1910

loretto
I look below;  Niagara’s torrent white
Is eager hurrying to the dread abyss;
I hear its thunder as the waters hiss
Over the awful brink, to plunge from sight
In seething spray!   Confusion at its height
Is pictured there; but even on convent walls
The radiant glow of even gently falls
And all is harmony and holy quiet!

Like some blest soul on Heaven that ever dreams,
Bending its chastened look beyond the skies,
Regardless of the tumults of the world;
So, crowned with peace this cloistered abbey seems,
And on its peerless heights serene doth rise,
While deep below the raging floods are hurled!

Source: Rev. James B. Dollard. Poems. Toronto: The Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada, 1910.

Also in the anthology Niagara Mornings by Andrew C. Porteus, 2016.

At Niagara Falls by Anson G. Chester

 

chester
Robin on a Porch Railing.
Photo by Kyle Johnston on Unsplash

In the Maytime, at Niagara,
As a Sabbath morning broke,
Full of glory, peace and beauty,
From his dreams the sleeper woke.

All was quiet, save the thunder
That forever there prevails —
That, throughout the gathering ages,
Never pauses, never fails.

But the thunder of the torrent
Of a sudden died away,
Just as if a spell of silence
On the rampant waters lay.

For a robin, at the casement,
Trilled its carols sweet and strong,
And he heard the roar no longer —
It was vanquished by the song!

On thine ear the roar and tumult
Of the noisy world must fall,
But a little song of love and trust
Will overcome it all.

Source: Kevin McCabe, ed. The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines, Ont. : Blarney Stone Books, 1999.

 Originally published in Poets and Poetry of Buffalo. 1904.

Composer and conductor Harris Loewen set this poem to music in 2018, published by Cypress Choral Music. Listen to the composition on Soundcloud. Many thanks to Prof. Loewen for permission to post this here.

 

 

chester chester

Niagara by John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, Marquis of Lorne

argyll
Portrait of the Marquis of Lorne,1884
by John Everett Millais
From the collections of the National Gallery of Canada

A ceaseless, awful, falling sea, whose sound
…Shakes earth and air, and whose resistless stroke
…Shoots high the volleying foam like cannon smoke !
How dread and beautiful the floods, when, crowned
By moonbeams on their rushing ridge, they bound
…Into the darkness and the veiling spray ;
…Or, jewel-hued and rainbow-dyed, when day
Lights the pale torture of the gulf profound !
So poured the avenging streams upon the world
…When swung the ark upon the deluge wave,
And, o‘er each precipice in grandeur hurled,
…The endless torrents gave mankind a grave.
God‘s voice is mighty, on the water loud,
Here, as of old, in thunder, glory, cloud!

Source: Lorne, Marquis of. Memories of Canada and Scotland: Speeches and Verses.  Montreal: Dawson Brothers, Publishers, 1884.

Also published with the author listed as John Campbell, Duke of Argyll in Kevin McCabe, ed. The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines, Ont. : Blarney Stone Books, 1999.

Marquis of Lorne, also Duke of Argyll, was John George Edward Henry Sutherland Campbell, the Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. Read about him here