Thou art the queen of all rivers, rejoicing in song,
As you toss the white spray, driving mist to the shore;
And your voice echoes jubilant, resonant, strong —
O such music ne'er greeted a mortal before.

And sublime your melodious, thundering boom, —
A far reaching refrain, so triumphant and long,
'Tis the meeting of waters that dash to their doom,
And the sweet intermezzo that creeps in your song.

But the centuries come and the centuries go,
And the white man now treads where the Indian raced;
Loud your waters still sing, and as restlessly flow,
As when near the great cataract, wigwams were placed.

You are tragic in splendour, primordially grand,
And your mystical waves glow with opaline sheen,
With perpetual song, swelling out o'er the land,
You enchant us forever, magnificent Queen.

Source: Caroline Eleanor Wilkinson. Poems That Appeal. Niagara Falls, Ont. : F.H. Leslie, Limited,. Printers, 1928.

Caroline Eleanor Wilkinson (1864-1949) published poems in many magazines and newspapers, but only published one volume of poetry. For more information on her visit the Simon Fraser University's Canada's Early Women Writer's site

View this poem on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website

Rambler's Rest is the only remaining one of several stone pavilions that were erected along the gorge edge in 1907. It provides a good lookout over the gorge and the river beneath. It can be rented out for small weddings.

It was in this area that the "Rainbow Cabins" used in the movie Niagara with Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotton were constructed, and which were taken down after shooting was finished. Visitors to Niagara for decades after the movie was released in 1953 came to see the now non-existent cabins.