Classic Poem

Again I see thee!—once again I know
Mine oldtime witchery as in years gone by,
Titan of grace, white, fascinating, vast,
Sultan of torrents, calm in matchless power;
Eternally the same, Niagara!
Eternal in thine ecstasy, awake
In thy tremendous sway,—unwearying
Ever of thyself, as man untired
Of gazing upon thee.—How couldst thou tire?
Beauty, alive forever, acts and lives
In purity and cannot fail!—O thou,
The perfect daughter without human touch
Of His high Fiat, that perpetuates
The laws inviolable in their course,—
Fond sister of the skies, the light, the air!—
Guest unexpelled of Eden that we lost,
Thy beauty is creation's constant work,
Transcending even its high Creator's breath.
Here, something tells us, here is God!
Nectar of rapture, and of balm that sprang
In times of old; today beholding thee
There wake within our breast the seeds divine;
The ardent soul to Nature's wonder swells;
The warming love of family grips the heart
Eternal and indissoluble; thus
As to the sea the drop released from earth,—
Thus for the mother's breast the baby inclines,—
Dumb in our intimate delight we turn
To this communion with eternity.
Can God grow weary?—Ah, in things that cloy
There is a deadly, fatal principle,
Inertia, the germ of death at war
With God, the gangrene of a soul apart
From His restoring floods—But where, O mind,
Descendst thou?—O Niagara, recall,
And in thy image let me see, the boast
Of souls victorious, behold sublime
The hero in his martyrdom, and gaze
Upon the genius calm amid his powers!
Delight me, soothe me, O museum vast
Of cataracts, O foundry of the clouds!
O sea, without a depth despite thy waves,
White colonnade some great Alcides reared
From out Olympus, here between the twain
Mediterranean oceans of the world!
Live on, eccentric giant, to delight
In solitary, immemorial mood
Of madness of the gods! Unchained fling forth
Thine ocean floods along the sloping gorge,
And lost in rapture, drunken with the joys
Of thine own strength, mind not that man has marked
Thy Titan play among the solitudes,—
No more than where the ant lifts up its head
To join itself with thee—What difference?
The earth cannot contain thee, in a burst
Thou surgest on unto thine ocean couch!

From the globe's confines ultimate, men come
To visit thee, to raise themselves on high
With contemplation of thy matchless charms.
A thousand tongues along thy banks acclaim
In Thee the grandeur of their God, the boast
Of nature's purest triumph over all.
Heredia came and paid his tribute here,
Hailing Niagara in his soul, in dread
More of himself than thee, for all thy floods!
The Anglo-Saxon cyclops quick to prove
Unto the world that he is lord of thee,
Spans thy great gorges with his airy bridge,
Embracing thee as with an iron hand,
In sign that man (the insect of the hour,
The dizzying hour!) proclaims his reign abroad!
'Tis heaven herself laid down beneath thy feet
These angel pillows colored for the spheres;
And for one bridge, hers are a thousand round,
To art of man opposing that of heaven,
Hangs tremulous here, as though the smile of peace
Amid the heavy breathings about death,
Her tranquil bow amidst the wild abyss!

Sufficing glory is thy ceaseless spring
Of beauties, thou art shrine perpetual
Of man's deep wonder. What can I for thee,
Save but to add my little name to thine?
I am the trifling shadow at the gates,
A day to hover silent, a light breath
In silence moving through thine icy mist—
If to the surge volcanic of thy breast
The earth, thy trembling cradle, hears the wind
Groan through its stony hollows in reply,—
I know not, for my heart is hushed, nor stirs
Within my soul the ardent flame of song.
But what is this to thee, who, changelessly
Assert'st thy majesty and pomp,—while I
In years of exile stand and weariness
Of soul? Today I gaze on thee with eyes
Of sadness, Amphitheatre divine!—
Where 'mid thy gusts and mists eternal strifes
Of crags and whirlpools rage. In me there stirs
No combat; nay, thy presence, rather than
Thy lofty beauty wakes my wonderment,
Inspires prostration,—yea, and chills my soul!
This milky lake asleep beneath my feet,
These curdling waves of emerald that cloak
As in a mantle's fold thy rocky bed
Where floods are gasping—all unknowing where
Their destinies are urging; the dread pool
And maelstrom that awaits them where in power
As of an angry sea they writhe and lift
Their heads, like some lethargic boa, rolled
In his majestic, noiseless coils and poised
Magnetic for his dart; and so it is
With me; such is the mortuary sea
Of my existence, where the hidden plan
Sweeps in the whirlpool, gulfing, drowning me.

Whence, O Heredia, thy dread? I look
And find it not. Not so unhappy thou
Hadst thou known real fear. Thy hopes
Grew pale and trembled here unto their death.
Here over all rules desperation; here
She lifts her craggy altars; from these deeps
And Tartarous regions soars the mighty call
Of demon voices to infernal bliss!
No, Nature never overwhelms the soul
With dread; her very worst is but a boon.
Her very tomb is but a couch of rest.
She is a child, forever innocent
And candorous; a gentle nurse whom heaven
In goodness gave to man.—
To man, the asp,
The monster (O Heredia, how well
Thou knewst!) whose contact is affright to me;
The asp that poisons soul and body both;
Satan eternal of our brothers' lives,
As well as of our own; disturber born
Of every Paradise that Nature yields,
Of every scene with ordered peace that brings
His mind the memory of heaven,
His wasted destiny! Mankind, the link
Between the angel and the fiend, the foe
Of all who would ascend the heavenly stair
Toward the high model of Divinity!—
Away, abortion!—Here is Nature, here!
But at the sight of this vast, thunderous stream,—
This splendid comet of the waterways—
I would not seek its arms, like that light bow
That trembles o'er its radiant gates,—nor yield
My thoughts nor feelings!—
Thou art so supreme,
Niagara, so irresistible
Thy witchery and majesty combined,
That hapless man, amid his little day,
Can but adore thee; God grant happy death
To him who vainly turns to thee to ease
His overpowering woes!—
O mother mine,
Sweet martyr soul, thy pardon! 'Tis today
At home, that once was happy, we make feast
In honor of thy name. I now implore
On high thy pardon. 'Tis no fault of thine
That I should owe to thee my hapless life.
Today once more canst save me; once again
Through thy unfailing tenderness, thy son
Revived anew, makes offering anew
Of freshened vigor—
Here, through custom old,
Come first the wedded from their nuptial shrine;
Here is their second nave and altar-place
Of love; here are their seats beyond the world
Within the Love-God's arms of clemency.
Ah, may He bless them, casting on the surge
The pure white jasmine blossom of their wreaths!—
Rest, rest! chaste visioning! Unto the sound
Niagara thy parent rocks thee, rest!
Faithful shall be thy lullaby, O rest!
Until across thy garlands come the voice
Of the great requiem he chants for thee.
Let thy soul take my blessing upon thee,—
Keep it as benediction in thy heart;
Blesséd because thou lov'st; more blesséd still
When thou no more art woman, when thou die'st,
And disappear'st and fallest to repose—
My soul grows weary o'er thy silent grave!—
All is accomplished—all with perfectness,
As God decrees; today the absent turns
His way again to thee; again as one
We stand together,—thou within thy tomb,
Ah, dead, they say!—And I perchance, more dead
Than thou—surviving mine own heart!—Peace!—Peace!
Let not my woes disturb thee in thy rest!
Yet easier would it be, Niagara,
To speak across the tumult of thy falls!—

Thy waters seem like the beginning world
That leaps from out the hand of the Divine,
Inaugurating its eternal course
Throughout the ether deeps! Thou art like heaven
That bends upon the earth amid thy clouds
Half-veiling here the majesty of God.
Forever new and brilliant in thy sweep;
Forever fertile, and magnificent,
The vital spring of mother Nature's breasts
Shining with healthful savors,—thou dost show
Thy grandeur in thy fall, and raisest high
From thine abyss the hymn of praise and life.
But oh! to me life is a sarcasm now;
My world has finished, and my soul is dead;
In my desire to sing speaks but the rime
Of hate, or De profundis as of death.

It is to lighten weary days,
 Niagara, my steps I hither press;
To turn indifferent shoulders to thy ways,
My brows immersed amid thine icy sprays,
 Rendering back to thee—forgetfulness.