Transcriber's note: The following Table of Contents has been added for the convenience of the reader.
[THOUGHTS AT NIAGARA.]
[STANZAS TO A LADY.]
[MOHAWK.]
[THE INNOCENCE OF A GALLEY-SLAVE.]
[STANZAS.]
[THE DEATH OF A GENTLE MAIDEN.]
[FOREST WALKS IN THE WEST.]
[ODE TO BEAUTY.]
[MEADOW-FARM: A TALE OF ASSOCIATION.]
[THE MAIDEN'S BURIAL.]
[A NIGHT ON LAKE ERIE.]
[A NEW VERSION OF AN OLD FABLE.]
[THE MAIL ROBBER]
[LETTER THIRD.]
[THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE.]
[EPIGRAM: FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.]
[THE PRINTER.]
[CÀ ET LÀ.]
[THE DYING STUDENT.]
[LITERARY NOTICES.]
[EDITOR'S TABLE.]
THE KNICKERBOCKER.
Vol. XXII. SEPTEMBER, 1843. No. 3.
[THOUGHTS AT NIAGARA.]
'There's nothing great or bright, thou glorious Fall!
Thou may st not to the fancy's sense recall.' Morpeth.
Numbers have labored to describe this imposing spectacle, but no pen can exhaust the subject, or do full justice to its grandeur. It is great, indescribable, mighty; and the sensations it produces are indefinite, confused, and wholly unlike and above the emotions raised by other scenes and other causes. It would be presumption to offer a description; although the image of the passing moment is so deeply fixed in the mind, that all else can be dismissed at pleasure, and the imagination conduct us, as often as we will, to a seat on Table-Rock where we can again see the dashing waters roll up in billows above the verge, then gliding over, literally tumble into myriads of particles before they are lost in the rising spray.
One idea impressed me strongly, while enjoying this triumph of Nature's eccentricities; that the Canada Fall was to the American as Great Britain to the United States. Both of the same majestic pattern, equally lofty, created by the same stream, and side by side; but the former more powerful, more irresistible, more overwhelming; while the latter possesses another kind of beauty, less angry, less furious, less threatening, but yet grand and magnificent, and, take away the other fall, incomparable.