Niagara Falls 



1886 Hither and thither whirled in eddies infinite, 



Ward Leaping in lambent jets and cascades showery, 



Over the sunk rocks pourest thou unceasingly, — 

 So in life's drift and swirl man writhes defiantly, 

 Only in wreck, at last, to end, disastrously. 



Cometh a change to Life and River, presently ; 

 Out of its perils Life emerges, jubilant, 

 E'en as thy waters seek in calm serenity, 

 Under this arched and rainbow broidered canopy, 

 Torrent immortal, rest an instant in thine agony. 



Haste is there none, but eagerness and promptitude ; 



Frivolous things are cast aside disdainfully ; 



Nothing the brink can pass but heaven-lit purity ; 



As on thy emerald crown, we see, Niagara, 



Naught but the gem-like gleams from the blue sky over thee, 



Out of the far off past emerging regally, 



Stately in step, thy grandest. one now daring thee, — 



Architect fine and subtle, never loitering, 



Minute by minute, frost and whirlwind aiding thee, 



Toilest thou deftly, thine own highway channelling. 



Onward proud River ! — many a voiceless century 

 Into the shadow past had vanished recordless, 

 Did not the lines and chinks of thy shrewd chiselling. 

 Scarring the polished tablets of thy cenotaph, 

 Tell us the mystic story of thy genesis. 



Summary 

 Poetry 

 This chapter under the heading of Music-Poetry-Fiction, will 

 reveal the absence of any Niagara verse from the pens of the most 

 of the great poets. Goldsmith and Thomas Moore are two excep- 

 tions to this rule. Yet strangely enough many of the great singers 

 have written exalted and poetic prose descriptions of the cataract. 



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