Tag: Table Rock Album

Untitled by A.N.C.

poem
Paper Mills at Entrance to Goat Island sketched by Ferdinand Ferdinand. Image Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library 

Niagara ! to thee
‡‡‡‡My spectacles I turn !
I see the waters boil,
‡‡‡‡As if all . . . did burn,
And Satan’s imps, with ardour hot,
Were thrusting wood beneath the pot.

‡‡‡‡O what a deaf’ning noise
Thy tortur’d waters make !
‡‡‡‡The thunders of thy voice
Kept me all night awake :
I could but hear the lumbering sound,
When all were sunk in sleep profound.

‡‡‡‡And then what clouds of spray
Bedim my weaken’d sight ;
‡‡‡‡And then, in light of day,
Bring rainbows to my sight :
Well might poor Snip thus make his note —
“Mem — What a place to spunge a coat !”

‡‡‡‡And then, O what a waste
Of water-power is here !
‡‡‡‡‘Twould move ten thousand water-wheels,
And run them thro’ the year !
Well might the Yankee say — “be still —
Oh what a place to build a mill.”

 

Source: Dr. Thomas Rolph. A Brief Account, Together With Observations, Made During a Visit in the West Indies, and a Tour Through the United States of America, in Parts of the Years 1832-3; Together With a Statistical Account of Upper Canada. Dundas, U.C. : G. Heyworth Hackstaff, Printer, 1836.

Rolph mentions this poem was written in the Table Rock Album; it is not published in Thomas & Lathrop’s excerpts from the Table Rock Album. Rolph would have been looking at the original. See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Albums

Untitled by S. P. B.

waters
American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Horseshoe Falls from Prospect Point

The waters of Niagara,
‘Tis wondrous how they go,
A tumbling from the rock above,
Down to the rocks below.
They’ve run this way, this many a day,
And now to shift the scene,
I would suggest, just for a change,
To have them run up stream.

Source: Dr. Thomas Rolph. A Brief Account, Together With Observations, Made During a Visit in the West Indies, and a Tour Through the United States of America, in Parts of the Years 1832-3; Together With a Statistical Account of Upper Canada. Dundas, U.C. : G. Heyworth Hackstaff, Printer, 1836.

Rolph mentions this poem was written in the Table Rock Album; it is not published in Thomas & Lathrop’s excerpts from the Table Rock Album. Rolph would have been looking at the original. See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Albums

Acrostic by Anonymous

acrostic
Barnett’s Table Rock House and Museum and the Prince of Wales Arch, 1860. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

N  ature’s great masterpiece  ! how feeble man
I   n vain essays of thee and thine to tell —
A  ll wondrous as thou art — a mighty plan —
G  reat, glorious, grand and indescribable !
A  nd fain would measure thee with pigmy span !
“R efrain,” each object cries — “Lay down thy rod,
A  nd look thro’ Nature, up to Nature’s God.

August 18, 1834

Source: Dr. Thomas Rolph. A Brief Account, Together With Observations, Made During a Visit in the West Indies, and a Tour Through the United States of America, in Parts of the Years 1832-3; Together With a Statistical Account of Upper Canada. Dundas, U.C. : G. Heyworth Hackstaff, Printer, 1836.

Rolph mentions this acrostic poem was written in the Table Rock Album; it is not published in Thomas & Lathrop’s excerpts from the Table Rock Album. Rolph would have been looking at the original. See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Albums

Untitled by Anonymous

careering
Below Table Rock, Niagara. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Niagara, Niagara — careering in its might,
The fierce and free Niagara shall be my theme to-night !
A glorious theme — a glorious home, Niagara, are mine ;
Heaven’s fire is on thy flashing wave, it’s thunder blends with thine.
The clouds are bursting fearfully, the rocks beneath me quiver :
But thou unscathed ar’t hurrying on, for ever and for ever.
Years touch thee not, Niagara — thou art a changeless thing,
For still the same deep roundelay thy solemn waters sing.

Source: Dr. Thomas Rolph. A Brief Account, Together With Observations, Made During a Visit in the West Indies, and a Tour Through the United States of America, in Parts of the Years 1832-3; Together With a Statistical Account of Upper Canada. Dundas, U.C. : G. Heyworth Hackstaff, Printer, 1836.

Rolph mentions this poem was written in the Table Rock Album; it is not published in Thomas & Lathrop’s excerpts from the Table Rock Album. Rolph would have been looking at the original. See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Albums

On the Same* by George Menzies

menzies roll 

menzies roll
Niagara Falls, 1818 by Louisa Davis Minot

Roll on, mysterious river, in thy might,
Awakening dreams of terrible delight,
Or thrilling fear, and turning into naught
All that hath e’er been sketched in human thought
Of beauty and of grandeur — God hath thrown
A glorious girdle round thee — God alone
Can curb thy restless torrent — He who gave
His voice of thunder to thy rushing wave,
And built on foam the bright prismatic bow
That sheds its glory on the gulf below —
Yea, He whose path is in the secret deep,
Shall lull thy troubled spirit into sleep,
Still as a wearied babe that’s on the breast
Of yearning love is cradled into rest.

Chippewa, Nov. 9, 1834.

*Untitled in Table Rock Album.  The poem is published immediately after the poem Lines Written in the Album of The Table Rock, Niagara Falls in The Posthumous Works of the Late George Menzies.

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 George Menzies. The Posthumous Works of the Late George Menzies: Being a Collection of Poems, Sonnets, &c., &c., Written at Various Times When the Author was Connected With the Provincial Press. Woodstock: Printed by John Douglass, 1850

Biography of George Menzies