Part 16 (1/2)

This is Jehovah's fullest organ strain!

I hear the liquid music rolling, breaking.

From the gigantic pipes the great refrain Bursts on my ravished ear, high thoughts awaking!

The low sub-ba.s.s, uprising from the deep, Swells the great paean as it rolls supernal-- Anon, I hear, at one majestic sweep The diapason of the keys eternal!

Standing beneath Niagara's angry flood-- The thundering cataract above me bounding-- I hear the echo: ”Man, there is a G.o.d!”

From the great arches of the gorge resounding!

Behold, O man! nor shrink aghast in fear!

Survey the vortex boiling deep before thee!

The Hand that ope'd the liquid gateway here Hath set the beauteous bow of promise o'er thee!

Here, in the hollow of that Mighty Hand, Which holds the basin of the tidal ocean, Let not the jarring of the spray-washed strand Disturb the orisons of pure devotion.

Roll on, Niagara! great River King!

Beneath thy sceptre all earth's rulers, mortal, Bow reverently; and bards shall ever sing The matchless grandeur of thy peerless portal!

I hear, Niagara, in this grand strain, His voice, who speaks in flood, in flame and thunder-- Forever mayst thou, singing, roll and reign-- Earth's grand, sublime, supreme, supernal wonder.

Such lines as these--which might be many times multiplied--recall Eugene Thayer's ingenious and highly poetic paper on ”The Music of Niagara.”[89] Indeed, many of the prose writers, as well as the versifiers, have found their best tribute to Niagara inspired by the mere sound of falling waters.

That Niagara's supreme appeal to the emotions is not through the eye but through the ear, finds a striking ill.u.s.tration in ”Thoughts on Niagara,”

a poem of about eighty lines written prior to 1854 by Michael McGuire, a blind man.[90] Here was one whose only impressions of the cataract came through senses other than that of sight. As is usual with the blind, he uses phrases that imply consciousness of light; yet to him, as to other poets whose devotional natures respond to this exhibition of natural laws, all the phenomena merge in ”the voice of G.o.d”:

I stood where swift Niagara pours its flood Into the darksome caverns where it falls, And heard its voice, as voice of G.o.d, proclaim The power of Him, who let it on its course Commence, with the green earth's first creation;

And I was where the atmosphere shed tears, As giving back the drops the waters wept, On reaching that great sepulchre of floods,-- Or bringing from above the bow of G.o.d, To plant its beauties in the pearly spray.

And as I stood and heard, _though seeing nought_, Sad thoughts took deep possession of my mind, And rude imagination venturing forth, Did toil to pencil, though in vain, that scene, Which, in its every feature, spoke of G.o.d.

The poem, which as a whole is far above commonplace, develops a pathetic prayer for sight; and employs much exalted imagery attuned to the central idea that here Omnipotence speaks without ceasing; here is

A temple, where Jehovah is felt most.

But for the most part, the world's strong singers have pa.s.sed Niagara by; nor has Niagara's newest aspect, that of a vast engine of energy to be used for the good of man, yet found worthy recognition by any poet of potentials.

This survey, though incomplete, is yet sufficiently comprehensive to warrant a few conclusions. More than half of all the verse on the subject which I have examined was written during the second quarter of this century. The first quarter, as has been shown, was the age of Niagara's literary discovery, and produced a few chronicles of curious interest. During the last half of the century--the time in which practically the whole brilliant and substantial fabric of American literature has been created--Niagara well-nigh has been ignored by the poets. In all our list, Goldsmith and Moore are the British writers of chief eminence who have touched the subject in verse, though many British poets, from Edwin Arnold to Oscar Wilde, have written poetic prose about Niagara. Of native Americans, I have found no names in the list of Niagara singers greater than those of Drake and Mrs. Sigourney.