Part 15 (1/2)

are by no means the worst of Niagara poems.

I cannot conceive of Niagara Falls as a scene promotive of humor, or suggestive of wit. Others may see both in John G. Saxe's verses, of which the first stanza will suffice to quote:

See Niagara's torrent pour over the height, How rapid the stream! how majestic the flood Rolls on, and descends in the strength of his might, As a monstrous great frog leaps into the mud!

The ”poem” contains six more stanzas of the same stamp.

The writing of jingles and doggerel having Niagara as a theme did not cease when the Alb.u.ms were no longer kept up. If there is no humor or grotesqueness in Niagara, there is much of both in the human accessories with which the spot is constantly supplied, and these will never cease to stimulate the wits. I believe that a study of this field--not in a restricted, but a general survey--would discover a decided improvement, in taste if not in native wit, as compared with the compositions which found favor half a century ago. Without entering that field, however, it will suffice to submit in evidence one ”poem” from a recent publication, which shows that the making of these American _genre_ sketches, with Niagara in the background, is not yet a lost art:

Before Niagara Falls they stood, He raised aloft his head, For he was in poetic mood, And this is what he said:

”Oh, work sublime! Oh, wondrous law That rules thy presence here!

How filled I am with boundless awe To view thy waters clear!

”What myriad rainbow colors float About thee like a veil, And in what countless streams remote Thy life has left its trail!”

”Yes, George,” the maiden cried in haste, ”Such shades I've never seen, I'm going to have my next new waist The color of that green.”

From about 1850 down to the present hour there is a striking dearth of verse, worthy to be called poetry, with Niagara for its theme.

Newspapers and magazines would no doubt yield a store if they could be gleaned; perchance the one Niagara pearl of poetry is thus overlooked; but it is reasonably safe to a.s.sume that few really great poems sink utterly from sight. There is, or was, a self-styled Bard of Niagara, whose verses, printed at Montreal in 1872, need not detain us. The only long work on the subject of real merit that I know of, which has appeared in recent years, is George Houghton's ”Niagara,” published in 1882. Like Mr. Bulkley, he has a true poet's grasp of the material aspect of his subject:

Formed when the oceans were fas.h.i.+oned, when all the world was a workshop; Loud roared the furnace fires and tall leapt the smoke from volcanoes, Scooped were round bowls for lakes and grooves for the sliding of rivers, Whilst with a cunning hand, the mountains were linked together.

Then through the day-dawn, lurid with cloud, and rent by forked lightning, Stricken by earthquake beneath, above by the rattle of thunder, Sudden the clamor was pierced by a voice, deep-lunged and portentous-- Thine, O Niagara, crying, ”Now is creation completed!”

He sees in imagination the million sources of the streams in forest and prairie, which ultimately pour their gathered ”tribute of silver” from the rich Western land into the lap of Niagara. He makes skillful use of the Indian legendry a.s.sociated with the river; he listens to Niagara's ”dolorous fugue,” and resolves it into many contributory cries. In exquisite fancy he listens to the incantation of the siren rapids:

Thus, in some midnight obscure, bent down by the storm of temptation (So hath the wind, in the beechen wood, confided the story), Pine trees, thrusting their way and trampling down one another, Curious, lean and listen, replying in sobs and in whispers; Till of the secret possessed, which brings sure blight to the hearer (So hath the wind, in the beechen wood, confided the story), Faltering, they stagger brinkward--clutch at the roots of the gra.s.ses, Cry--a pitiful cry of remorse--and plunge down in the darkness.

The cataract in its varied aspects is considered with a thought for those who

Sin, and with wine-cup deadened, scoff at the dread of hereafter,-- And, because all seems lost, besiege Death's door-way with gladness.

The master-stroke of the poem is in two lines:

That alone is august which is gazed upon by the n.o.ble, That alone is gladsome which eyes full of gladness discover.

Herein lies the rebuking judgment upon Niagara's detractors, not all of whom have perpetrated alb.u.m rhymes.

Mr. Houghton, as the reader will note, recognizes the tragic aspect of Niagara. Considering the insistence with which accident and suicide attend, making here an unappeased altar to the weaknesses and woes of mankind, this aspect of Niagara has been singularly neglected by the poets. We have it, however, exquisitely expressed, in the best of all recent Niagara verse--a sonnet ent.i.tled ”At Niagara,” by Richard Watson Gilder.[86] The following lines ill.u.s.trate our point:

There at the chasm's edge behold her lean Trembling, as, 'neath the charm, A wild bird lifts no wing to 'scape from harm; Her very soul drawn to the glittering, green, Smooth, l.u.s.trous, awful, lovely curve of peril; While far below the bending sea of beryl Thunder and tumult--whence a billowy spray Enclouds the day.

There is a considerable amount of recent verse commonly called ”fugitive” that has Niagara for its theme, but I find little that calls for special attention. A few Buffalo writers, the Rev. John C. Lord, Judge Jesse Walker, David Gray, Jas. W. Ward, Henry Chandler, and the Rev. Benjamin Copeland among them, have found inspiration in the lake and river for some of the best lines that adorn the purely local literature of the Niagara region. Indeed, I know of no allusion to Niagara more exquisitely poetical than the lines in David Gray's historical poem, ”The Last of the Kah-Kwahs,” in which he compares the Indian villages sleeping in ever-threatened peace to

... the isle That, locked in wild Niagara's fierce embrace, Still wears a smile of summer on its face-- Love in the clasp of Madness.

With this beautiful imagery in mind, recall the lines of Byron:

On the verge . . . . . . . . .

An Iris sits amidst the infernal surge . . . . . . . . .