Which is known as the 'Orchard County'?
Which as the 'Garden State'?
Which captain of the Bounty
was set adrift by his mate?

Who cooked and ate an omelette
midway across Niagara Falls?
Where did Setanta get
those magical hurley balls

he ram-stammed down the throat
of the blacksmith's hound?
Why would a Greek philosopher of note
refuse to be bound

by convention but live in a tub
from which he might overhear,
as he went to rub
an apple on his sleeve, the mutineers

plotting to seize the Maid of the Mist
while it was still half able to forge
ahead and make half a fist
of crossing the Niagara gorge,

the tub in which he might light a stove
and fold in the beaten
eggs into themselves? Who unearthed the egg-trove?
And who, having eaten

the omelette, would marvel at how the Mounties
had so quickly closed in on him, late
of the 'Orchard County'
by way of the 'Garden State'?

Source: http://www.princeton.edu/almagest/courseware/publi...

(link no longer active)

View this poem on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website

I salute you, O Frenchman, fellow-republican,
Crosser of chasms, traverser of rivers,
Walking on a rope of hempen fiber
Above the roaring thunder of mighty Niagara.

A human miracle over a natural wonder,
You walk step by step on the tautened rope
Above the spume, the spray, the ever-rising vapor
Of the cataract's incessantly tumbling torrent.

On a filament, balanced between America and Canada,
You perform mid-crossing an impudent somersault
Over a cumulus cloud of spray-water rising.

Small man with balancing-pole, in circus costume,
You wear a blindfold and saunter over the abyss
In the watery smells of the misty air.

You cannot hear the shouts and cheers of the thousands
Watching your nimble footwork over precipitous vistas,
As we applaud the magnitude of your achievements
Above the magnificent drop of the roaring waters.

O Blondin, bridger of chasms,
I extol your unique intrepidity
As I salute Niagara afresh in this song.

The torrent unabashed, unabated, rushes headlong to crash
Into the tumult of the diluvian waterfall,
A half-drowned rainbow spectral in all that spray.

Above it you walk on a tightrope and all the while
Blue Erie moves towards Ontario
Over mighty Niagara falling, night and day.

©Duncan Forbes

First published in his collection Voice Mail, 2002

This poem was inspired by Silveira's painting.

View this poem on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website

See Duncan Forbes' new book, Human Time, 2020

Signor Farini, otherwise known William Leonard Hunt was a tightrope walker from Port Hope, Ontario. He and Blondin had a great rivalry, and in the summer of 1860 they both crossed the gorge multiple times doing increasingly riskier stunts. After Niagara, he travelled the world performing stunts, and died in 1929 at the age of 91.

See more about Farini, Blondin and other daredevils on the Niagara Falls Thunder Alley Website.