Niagara Falls 



1872 A sonnet addressed to "Almighty God " who 



Biddle Here, by these waters, in their ceaseless flow, 



Has fixed His covenant. Behold the Bow! 

 And while earth trembles 'neath the mighty load, 

 Man sees the promise and the power of God! 



1872 RlDGELY, A. S. (Poem) (In Holley, G. W., Niagara; its history 



Ridgely anc j geology, incidents and poetry. . . . N. Y., Buffalo, Toronto. 



1872. Pp. 164-165.) 



Man lays his sceptre on the ocean waste, 

 His foot-prints stiffen in the Alpine snows, 

 But only God moves visibly in Thee, 

 Oh 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 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 

 774 



