Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Middle States: Niagara, the River

Niagara

By Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813–1892)

(Excerpt)

I STOOD within a vision’s spell;

I saw, I heard. The liquid thunder

Went pouring to its foaming hell,

And it fell,

Ever, ever fell

Into the invisible abyss that opened under.

I stood upon a speck of ground;

Before me fell a stormy ocean.

I was like a captive bound;

And around

A universe of sound

Troubled the heavens with ever-quivering motion.

Down, down forever—down, down forever,

Something falling, falling, falling,

Up, up forever—up, up forever,

Resting never,

Boiling up forever,

Steam-clouds shot up with thunder-bursts appalling,

A tone that since the birth of man

Was never for a moment broken,

A word that since the world began,

And waters ran,

Hath spoken still to man,—

Of God and of Eternity hath spoken.

*****

And in that vision, as it passed,

Was gathered terror, beauty, power;

And still, when all has fled, too fast,

And I at last

Dream of the dreamy past,

My heart is full when lingering on that hour.