dots-menu
×

Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Niagara Falls

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

Middle States: Niagara, the River

Niagara Falls

By Lord Morpeth (1802–1864)

THERE ’s nothing great or bright, thou glorious Fall!

Thou mayest not to the fancy’s sense recall.

The thunder-riven cloud, the lightning’s leap,

The stirring of the chambers of the deep;

Earth’s emerald green, and many tinted dyes.

The fleecy whiteness of the upper skies;

The tread of armies thickening as they come,

The boom of cannon and the beat of drum;

The brow of beauty and the form of grace,

The passion and the prowess of our race;

The song of Homer in its loftiest hour,

The unresisted sweep of human power;

Britannia’s trident on the azure sea,

America’s young shout of Liberty!

Oh! may the waves which madden in thy deep

There spend their rage nor climb the encircling steep;

And till the conflict of thy surges cease

The nations on thy banks repose in peace.