But break and crumble now and then like other banks around them;
And on their verge our life sweeps on—alternate joy and woe;
But the waters fall as once they fell two hundred years ago.
"Thus phantoms of a by-gone age have melted like the spray,
And in our turn we too shall pass, the phantoms of to-day:
But the armies of the coming time shall watch the ceaseless flow
Of waters falling as they fell two hundred years ago."
On turning to the more serious poems that have been written on the theme, the reader naturally experiences a feeling of disappointment that a scene which has filled and charmed so many eyes should have found so few interpreters. Only those who see Niagara know how fast the tongue is bound when the thought struggles most for utterance. One who seems to have experienced this feeling thus expresses it:
"I came to see;
I thought to write;