American and Horseshoe Falls From Niagara, Its History, Incidents and Poetry by Richard L. Johnson
“Man lays his scepter on the ocean waste,
His footprints stiffen in the Alpine snows,
But only God moves visibly in Thee,
O King of Floods! that with resistless fate
Down plungest in thy mighty width and depth.
* * * * * Amazement, terror, fill,
Impress and overcome the gazer’s soul.
Man’s schemes and dreams and petty littleness
Lie open and revealed. Himself far less—
Kneeling before thy great confessional—
Than are the bubbles of the passing tides.
Words may not picture thee, nor pencil paint
Thy might of waters, volumed vast and deep;
Thy many-toned and all-pervading voice;
Thy wood-crown’d Isle, fast anchor’d on the brink
Of the dread precipice; thy double stream,
Divided, yet in beauty unimpaired;
Thy wat’ry caverns and thy crystal walls;
Thy crest of sunlight and thy depths of shade,
Boiling and seething like a Phlegethon
Amid the wind-swept and convolving spray,
Steady as Faith and beautiful as Hope.
There, of beam and cloud the fair creation,
The rainbow arches its ethereal hues.
From flint and granite in compacture strong;
Not with steel thrice harden’d—but with the wave
Soft and translucent—did the new-born Time
Chisel thy altars. Here hast thou ever poured
Earth’s grand libation to Eternity,
Thy misty incense rising unto God—
The God that was and is and is to be.”
Source: Johnson, Richard L. (ed). Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington, Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898
Also published in Holley, G. W., ed. Niagara: Its History and Geology, Incidents and Poetry. Toronto, Hunter, Rose and Company, 1872
Also published in Holley, George W., ed. The Falls of Niagara. Baltimore: A.C. Armstrong & Son, 1883 (N.B. Holley mentions this poem by Ridgely is an excerpt from a larger work.)
Also published in Dow, Charles Mason. Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls. Albany: State of New York, 1921.
Niagara Falls From Prospect Point, c1900 Image courtesy of Library of Congress
Cyclopean torrent, this thy throne,
Which man but yesterday hath known,
Through all thy countless ages flown, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Creation’s masterpiece.
How wonderful and vast thou art!
Grand Pantheon of Omniscient art!
Thy flood-gates demonstrate thou art ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡“Without a parallel!”
Awe-struck I hear the passing crowd
Of heaving storm waves thundering loud,
And see them writing here the proud ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Grand Autograph of God.
A thousand waves on dress parade
Urge on the crowding cavalcade,
Which pauses on the brink, afraid ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡The awful plunge to take.
See yon gigantic wave command
The myriad troopers, as they stand
Erect, with flashing sword in hand, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡To charge the host below!
Adown they charge, that mighty force,
Resistless in its downward course;
The rider and the foaming horse — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Brigade Victorious!
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Thy grand façade, with curtains down,
Presents no monster’s ugly frown,
But, like a maiden’s bridal gown, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡A robe of beauty is.
Its elevation reaches high,
And fain would touch the changing sky,
Its falling waters ever cry, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Rejoicing as they leap:
“Majestic fleets that float their flags,
And brave Old Ocean’s rocky crags,
Dare not approach our rugged snags, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Nor Titan-fashioned front.
“Some noble bards have done their best
To praise Mt. Etna’s blazing crest,
Yet, we could flood the monarch’s nest ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡And crop his golden curls,
“And challenge heaven’s bright sentry stars
To find beneath his lavic bars
A spark, to light their gilded cars, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Before the blaze of morn.”
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Primeval tribes no more shall roam
Thy banks to pitch their tented home,
Whose fairest daughters made thy foam ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Their willing sepulchre.
For here they gathered once a year,
With festive dance and savage cheer,
And sacrificed, without a tear, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡The fairest of the tribe.
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Thy organ notes with thunderous roar,
Sound the Creator’s lofty score
Of Love and Mercy evermore, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡In grand diapason.
Beyond this temple vast and dim,
Methinks thy anthem, psalm, or hymn,
Floods in sweet melody to Him ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Who waits the grand Amen!
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Sheets of sunfire blaze and quiver
On thy waves, O boist’rous river,
As they leap to foam and shiver, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Adown this gulf of death!
Deep undercurrents night and day,
An everlasting power display,
Exhaustless, unconfined, they play, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Unfathomed, unrestrained.
Take in the sight around—about,
And know, Vain Man ! beyond a doubt,
God’s power is here past finding out — ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Eternal mystery.
Oft have I sat, in quiet hour,
Beside this emblem of God’s power,
And fancied Eden’s sacred bower ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡No symbol had like this.
Emotionful our souls should know
He placed that graceful radiant bow
To span the hurricane below, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡In token of His love.
Thou Sacrilegious Man—go hence!
How futile is thy vain pretence
To scoff and doubt Omnipotence, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Arrayed in glory here!
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Ere Cheops’ Pyramidal pile
Stood reared upon the classic Nile,
Was cut thy rough, rock-ribbed defile ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡By ante-glacial flood!
From yonder tower view Queenston’s height,
Hennepin was denied the sight,
From whence thou struggled in the night ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Of the primeval dawn.
The windings of thy crystal shoe,
Church faithfully portrayed, ’tis true,
The canvas shows a bygone view. ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Pride of the ” Corcoran.”
***********************************************
When Winter steps upon the stage.
White-cowled and solemn as a sage,
Thou dost display an ample page ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Of glistening ice-moss bright;
Ice Apples From the book Niagara, Its History, Incidents ad Poetry
Then icy apples moonlit shine
On evergreens at midnight time,
And then thou seemest most sublime, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡In snowy satin robed.
Translucent columns, purest white,
Glisten in the morning light;
Prismatic scene of rare delight, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Of hues Elysian;
Here snow-capped mountains block thy flow,
While crystal diamonds crown the show,
And icy bridges form below, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡To span a Paradise.
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The flower is pledged unto the bee,
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Our northern floods are pledged to thee, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Thou thundering watersheet!
And yet, O Thunderer, what art thou
To Him with iridescent brow,
Who guides thy grand retreating prow, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡That whispers of His might;
And notches on these walls of stone
His hieroglyphics, yet thine own,
To make thy soundless ages known, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Through glyptic monographs.
Who wrote his name, “The Unseen God,”
In burning letters, fiery shod,
On Terrapin Tower, once trod ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡By bold adventurers;
When lo! ’twas hurled from heaven to hell,
The tottering, grand old sentinel,
Where oft I went to view the well, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Above thy plunging floods.
***************************************
God gave thee queenly sisters three,
Faith, Hope and glorious Charity,
And placed the Iris Isle to be ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡A brooch to pin thy veil.
He sent the morn with rustling wings,
And filled the vales with babbling springs,
And gave the birds their color’d wings ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡And sweetly charming notes.
To praise thy cascades most sublime,
Thro’ every land, thro’ every clime,
Whose opalescent rainbows shine ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡To prove His promise true.
He heaved the snow-clad mountains up.
To fill old Erie’s vine-clad cup,
With waters sweet for thee to sup. ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Majestic Orator!
He listeth in thy cave sublime,
And speaketh in that voice of thine,
And rideth on the storms of Time, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Which lash the Island’s home.
A spectacle personified,
May here be seen at midnight tide;
And lovers with the greatest pride ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡May view a modest beau.
He courts the Queen of Night by day,
At Ev’n song he tints the spray;
At peep of dawn he fades away— ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡The opal lunar bow.
For the lost Eden, search no more,
In myth or prehistoric lore;
That question’s settled, evermore, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On this, the Sacred Isle,
Whose ferns and mosses scent the breeze,
Where east and west each soul agrees,
The Tigris and the Euphrates ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Flow swiftly, gladly on.
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How bright and grand to thee did seem
This world arrayed in living green,
While Luna, robed in silvery sheen, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Her nightly vigils kept,
With gleaming light and lunar bow,
Thy phantom flood of joy and woe,
A milky stream of ceaseless flow, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡A phosphorescent dream;
‘Till paler man, with selfish soul,
Held in his hand a parchment scroll,
And taxed his neighbors, ev’ry soul— ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Infinite Oracle!
Who came to list thy voice so true,
And view thy waters, green and blue,
And marvel at thy emerald shoe ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Whose hoof an empire is!
Seated on the “Rock of Ages,”
While musing o’er the sacred pages,
Indited by inspir’d sages, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡I heard a spirit say:
“Let lions roar and people sing,
And eagles flutter on the wing,
While all the bells in steeples ring ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡For thee, Niagara,
“A jubilation loud and grand,
From frigid zones to torrid strand,
For Dufferin ope’d, with lordly hand, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Thy flood-gates tribute free.
“Now may thy incense heavenward soar,
And thy tempestuous billows roar
Their solemn protests, o’er and o’er ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Thy crest, Niagara.
“‘Till Justice, with concordant wand.
And Liberty with outstretched hand,
Shall welcome pilgrims as they land ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡On Freedom’s happy shore.
“And guard with zealous care for aye,
Thy mighty organ, night and day,
That all the world may hear it play, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡With unvexed harmony.
“Until discordant war’s alarms,
And conflicts of contending arms.
Are silenced by thy mad’ning charms, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Plunge on, Niagara!
“Nor let thy eyelids ever close,
In Neptune’s arms in sweet repose,
‘Till all the nations shall disclose, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Like thee, Niagara,
“A charity as broad and deep
As is thine own encircling steep,
Or as thy vortex where we peep ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Thro’ azure mists to heaven.”
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In thee alone, Niagara,
Whose vast foundations seamed and knit
And bound by adamantine bars;
Methinks the Grecian bard would find
Meet inspiration for his noblest song,
And not in Trojan wars; ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡For here dwells Liberty.
While myriad sunlit, liquid pearls
Obscure thy bubbling pools and whirls,
Our goddess stoops, with golden curls,
To sip thy hydromel.
Proud Bedloe’s Isle may sound her horn—
Bartholdi’s gift her coast adorn;
But till her birthday’s final morn, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Here dwelleth Liberty.
In search of gain and worldly pelf,
The robber here hath shown himself,
And like the ox amid the delf, ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡He would this figure break.
Let press and voice at once condemn
The spoiler who would steal a gem
From off the glittering diadem ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Of this majestic stream.
Though “Hope’s bright star” is sometimes pale,
Let Hope, not Fear, in man prevail;
The misty Ghost within the veil ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Proves life’s resurrection.
Alas! Niagara, what are we
Frail creatures when compared to thee?
Yet, what art thou to Deity?— ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡But Insignificance.
Source: Johnson, Richard L. (ed). Niagara: Its History, Incidents and Poetry. Washington: Walter Neale General Book Publisher, 1898
Their tender tone o’er field and wood,
On summer wind now borne along;
With beating heart and eyes bedewed,
I hear once more their ev’ning song.
In many lands my feet have strayed,
Since I obeyed their vesper call;
When night winds stirred, in dreams I heard,
Their plaintive notes at evening’s fall.
Ring, ring, ring thy bells Deveaux
Ring o’er the cliffs thy bells Deveaux
Ring o’er field and wood as long ago;
Niag’ra’s murm’ring flood below
Ring o’er the cliffs thy bells Deveaux,
thy bells, thy bells, Deveaux
Once more a boy in forest dim,
I hear with joy their twilight hymn;
The toils of life, the joys we weep,
Our cares and sorrows ring to sleep.
O God from whom all blessings flow,
Protect thine hallow’d walls Deveaux,
And bells of heav’n, when life is past,
Call all thy children home at last.
Ring, ring, ring thy bells Deveaux
Ring o’er the cliffs thy bells Deveaux
Ring o’er field and wood as long ago;
Niag’ra’s murm’ring flood below
Ring o’er the cliffs thy bells Deveaux,
thy bells, thy bells, Deveaux
Source: Welch, Thomas Vincent (words) and Rieger, J. Ernest (music). Thy Bells Deveaux: Song for Soprano or Tenor and Mixed Quintette or Chorus. Niagara Falls, NY: J.E. Rieger, 1894
Many thanks to Lewis Buttery for bringing this song by Welch and Rieger to the NFPP curator’s attention.
The site of DeVeaux College is now owned by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, and is now the DeVeaux Woods State Park.
See the poem Chimes of De Veaux by Ada Elizabeth Fuller, to commemorate the installation of the new bells in 1913
Ambrose Chapel at De Veaux College, where the bells were housed Photo courtesy Big Daddy Dave blog
Fling out your silver peals, ‡‡Over the river’s breast. Speak to the waters, peace, ‡‡Bid the wild Rapids rest. Peal sweetly, high and low, ‡‡Chimes of De Veaux.
Chime to the flaming woods, ‡‡Gay in the morning sun. Chime to the solemn pines ‡‡After the day is done. Peal sweetly, high and low, ‡‡Chimes of De Veaux.
Ring out your silver strains, ‡‡Over Niagara’s breast. Bid the wild waters roll, ‡‡On to their ocean-rest. Peal sweetly, high and low, ‡‡Chimes of De Veaux.
Source: Ada Elizabeth Fuller. Sunshine and Shadow: Poems by Ada Elizabeth Fuller. Niagara Falls, Ont. Ada Elizabeth Fuller, 1919
The site of DeVeaux College is now owned by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, and is now the DeVeaux Woods State Park. According to the TowerBells.org DeVeaux School had a 10-bell chime installed by Meneely/Troy in 1913, which was sold to Verdin in November 1994. The remaining structure on the site have also been demolished.
From The Living Church, vol. 50, January 3, 1914
New Chimes at De Veaux College
On New Year’s Eve, at midnight, the new chimes at De Veaux College, Niagara Falls, N.Y. (the Rev. William Stanley Barrows, headmaster), were rung for the first time. The bells, ten in number, were made by the Meneely Company of Troy, and are known as their F Tenor chime. They are a duplicate of those recently given to Christ Church, Greenwich, Conn, and are the gift of Mr. Albert H. Lewis of Bridgeport, Conn., who attended De Veaux College from 1857 to 1862. The inscription on the great bell reads: “Fortiter, Fideliter, Feliciter. In honor of Samuel De Veaux and as a memorial to those trustees, masters, boys, and patrons who have faithfully served and fostered De Veaux College, this chime is presented by Albert Henry Lewis, ’57-’62, Founder’s Day, A. D. 1913, the fifty-sixth anniversary of the opening of De Veaux College. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace good will toward men.” The inscription of the other bells is: “Fortiter, Fideliter, Feliciter. De Veaux College, ex dono Albert Henry Lewis, Founder’s Day, A. D. 1913.”
View the song Thy Bells Deveaux by Thomas Vincent Welch and J. Ernest Rieger
Gorge of the Niagara River from Niagara Falls: America’s Scenic Wonders Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
Within the mighty Gorge I stand alone, ‡‡But little more than those small grains of sand
Which lie unnumbered, where the wave-worn shore ‡‡Stretched out to grasp them in its open hand.
But high above the river’s mighty voice, ‡‡A crystal throat brings in its note of charm—
The steady drip of water on a ledge ‡‡Of rocks, upheaved as by some mighty arm.
O’erhead the trees, with pray’rful murmurings, ‡‡Breathe soft to all the winds that flutter by—
The breezes that but came a moment hence ‡‡And went their airy journey with a sigh.
The river winds its fretful way along, ‡‡But deep within its plaintings, great and small,
I hear the mighty Maker’s mighty voice ‡‡In thousand thund’rous accents rise and fall.
Source: Ada Elizabeth Fuller. Sunshine and Shadow: Poems by Ada Elizabeth Fuller. Niagara Falls, Ont. Ada Elizabeth Fuller, 1919
