Poem by Emily Jane Pfeiffer

Niagara

ALMIGHTY voice that callest me from sleep,
Sleepless thyself through all the past of time,
And still unspent, inscrutable, sublime,
What answer can I make thee but to creep
And hide my silence in the all-sheltering deep
E'en of thy music? Clash of rhyme on rhyme
Offends mine ear as 't were a futile crime,
Breaking the peace which reverence should keep.

Yet for my worship lacking better way,
And seeing how thy strength is crowned with grace,
And maddened with the beauty of thy face,
I am constrained to cry as best I may
And tell thee with my faint, adoring breath
That at thy hand I fain would taste of death.

1. A Ballad of the “Thuner-See”
2. The Soudan
3. To a Fledgling Robin
4. In the Riviera
5. Beating the Air

Thomas Appleton Niagara ("THOUGH the dusk has extinguished the green")

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