Niagara Falls 



1826 



Brainard 



1826 



Emmons 



1826 



Brainard, John Gardiner Calkins. Poems . . . Hartford: 

 Edward Hopkins. 1842. P. 10. 



The editor of Lattell's Living Age in 1 874, pronounced this the finest 

 poem ever written on Niagara, and strange to say, the author, who was 

 the editor of the Connecticut Mirror from 1822 to 1827, never saw the 

 cataract. It is said that one day while the printer's devil was calling for 

 copy, Brainard was admiring a picture of Niagara. Its inspiration was 

 on him, and he told the boy to return in fifteen minutes. Within this 

 time he dashed off these nineteen lines which made him famous. 



The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain, 

 While I look upward to thee. It would seem 

 As if God poured thee from his " hollow hand," 

 And hung his bow upon thine awful front ; 

 And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to him 

 Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake, 

 4 The sound of many waters; '* and had bade 

 Thy flood to chronicle the ages back, 

 And notch His cent'ries in the eternal rocks. 



Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we 



That hear the question of that voice sublime? 



O ! what are all the notes that ever rung 



From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side ! 



Yea, what is all the riot man can make 



In his short life, to thy unceasing roar! 



And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him, 



Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far 



Above its loftiest mountains? — A light wave, 



That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might. 



Brainard, John Gardiner Calkins. Niagara. (In Church, 

 F. E., The great fall, Niagara. N. Y.: 1857. P. 3.) 



Emmons, Richard. The Fredoniad or independence preserved; an 

 epic poem on the late War of 1812. Bost. : William Emmons. 1827. 

 3 vols. Also 2d ed., Phila.: William Emmons. 1830. 1 vol. 



A poem in forty cantos dealing with the events of the War of 1812. 



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