Music — Poetry — Fiction 



John pulled his pocket-book out slow 1871 



And laid the money down, Barlow 



" From this time I will ride no more 



While I am in the town." 

 Then off to dinner he did go 



Which was made ready soon, 

 Then by himself he strolled away 



To spend the afternoon." 



Howells, William Dean. Avery. (In his Their wedding 1871 

 journey. Boston and N. Y. : Houghton Mifflin and Co. 1 888. Howellt 

 Pp. 139-141.) 



The hero recites these lines to the heroine as they sit on Goat Island at 

 the brink of the rapids. It is a most graphic account in verse of unsuc- 

 cessful attempts to rescue a man who had gone over the Fall. Since its 

 first publication in Their wedding journey, it has appeared in several 

 compilations of Niagara literature and verse, notably in Longfellow's 

 Poems of places. 



I 

 All night long they heard in the houses beside the shore, 

 Heard, or seemed to hear, through the multitudinous roar. 

 Out of the hell of the rapids as 'twere a lost soul's cries: 

 Heard and could not believe ; and the morning mocked their eyes 

 Showing where wildest and fiercest the waters leaped up and ran 

 Raving round him and past, the visage of a man 

 Clinging, or seeming to cling, to the trunk of a tree that, caught 

 Fast in the rocks below, scarce out of the surges raught. 

 Was it a life, could it be, to yon slender hope that clung? 

 Shrill, above all the tumult the answering terror rung. 



II 



Under the weltering rapids a boat from the bridge is drowned, 

 Over the rocks the lines of another are tangled and wound, 

 And the long, fateful hours of the morning have wasted soon, 

 As it had been in some blessed trance, and now it is noon. 

 Hurry, now with the raft ! But O. build it strong and stanch, 

 And to the lines and treacherous rocks look well as you launch 



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