University of Virginia Library

It was the leafy month of June,
And joyous Nature, all in tune,
With wreathing buds was drest,
As toward Niagara's fearful side
A youthful stranger prest.
His ruddy cheek was blanch'd with awe,
And scarce he seem'd his breath to draw,
While, bending o'er its brim,
He mark'd its strong, unfathom'd tide,
And heard its thunder-hymn.

His measured week too quickly fled,
Another, and another sped,
And soon the summer rose decay'd,
The moon of autumn sank in shade,
Years fill'd their circle brief and fair,
Yet still the enthusiast linger'd there,
Till winter hurl'd its dart;
For deeply round his soul was wove
A mystic chain of quenchless love,
That would not let him part.
When darkest midnight veil'd the sky,
You'd hear his hasting step go by,
To gain the bridge beside the deep,
That thread-like o'er the surge
Shot, where the wildest torrents leap,
And there, upon its awful verge,
His vigil lone to keep.

And when the moon, descending low,
Hung on the flood that gleaming bow,
Which it would seem some angel's hand
With heaven's own pencil tinged and spann'd,
Pure symbol of a better land,
He, kneeling, poured in utterance free
The eloquence of ecstasy;
Though to his words no answer came,
Save that One, Everlasting Name,
Which, since Creation's morning broke,
Niagara's lip alone hath spoke.

When wintry tempests shook the sky,
And the rent pine-tree hurtled by,
Unblenching mid the storm he stood,
And mark'd sublime the wrathful flood,
While wrought the frost-king fierce and drear,
His palace mid those cliffs to rear,
And strike the massy buttress strong,
And pile his sleet the rocks among,
And wasteful deck the branches bare
With icy diamonds, rich and rare.

Nor lack'd the hermit's humble shed
Such comforts as our natures ask
To fit them for their daily task,—
The cheering fire, the peaceful bed,
The simple meal in season spread:
While by the lone lamp's trembling light,
As blazed the hearth-stone clear and bright,
O'er Homer's page he hung,
Or Maro's martial numbers scann'd,
For classic lore of many a land
Flow'd smoothly o'er his tongue.
Oft, with rapt eye and skill profound,
He woke the entrancing viol's sound,
Or touch'd the sweet guitar,
For heavenly music deign'd to dwell
An inmate in his cloister'd cell,
As beams the solemn star
All night, with meditative eyes,
Where some lone rock-bound fountain lies.
As through the groves with quiet tread,
On his accustom'd haunts he sped,
The mother-thrush, unstartled, sung
Her descant to her callow young,
And fearless o'er his threshold prest
The wanderer from the sparrow's nest;
The squirrel raised a sparkling eye,
Nor from his kernel cared to fly
As pass'd that gentle hermit by;
No timid creature shrank to meet
His pensive glance, serenely sweet;
From his own kind, alone, he sought
The screen of solitary thought.
Whether the world too harshly prest
Its iron o'er a yielding breast,
Or taught his morbid youth to prove
The pang of unrequited love,
We know not, for he never said
Aught of the life that erst he led.

On Iris isle, a summer bower
He twined with branch, and vine, and flower,
And there he mused, on rustic seat,
Unconscious of the noonday heat,
Or 'neath the crystal waters lay,
Luxuriant, in the swimmer's play.
Yet once, the whelming flood grew strong,
And bore him like a weed along,
Though, with convulsive throes of pain
And heaving breast, he strove in vain;
Then sinking 'neath the infuriate tide,
Lone as he lived, the hermit died.

On, by the rushing current swept,
The lifeless corse its voyage kept,
To where, in narrow gorge comprest,
The whirling eddies never rest,
But boil with wild tumultuous sway,
The maelstrom of Niagara.
And there, within that rocky bound,
In swift gyrations round and round,
Mysterious course it held;
Now springing from the torrent hoarse,
Now battling as with maniac force,
To mortal strife compell'd.

Right fearful 'neath the moonbeam bright,
It was to see that brow so white,
And mark the ghastly dead
Leap upward from his torture-bed,
As if in passion-gust,
And tossing wild with agony,
To mock the omnipotent decree
Of dust to dust.