Flow on forever, in thy tranquil sleep,
Thou stream, all wearied by thy giant leap;
Flow on in quiet and in peace fore'er,
No rocky steep, no precipice is there.

The rush, the roar, the agony are past;
The leap, the mighty fall, are o'er at last;
And now with drowsy ripplings dost thou flow,
All murmuring in whispers soft and low.

Oh tell us, slumb'ring, em'rald river, now,
With that torn veil of foam upon thy brow;
Now, while thou sleepest quietly below, —
What are thy dreams? Spent river, let us know.

Again, in thought, dost dash o'er that dread steep,
By frenzy maddened to the fearful leap?
By passion's mists all blinded, cold and white,
Dost plunge once more, now, from the dizzy height?

Or else, forgetful of the dangers past,
Art dreaming calm and peacefully, at last,
Of that fair nymph who pressed thy livid brow,
And gave thy past a glory vanished now?

The Rainbow, whom the royal Sun e'er wooes,
For whom, in tears, the mighty Storm-king sues;
Who left her cloud-built palace-home above,
To crown thy awful brow with light and love.

Yes, in thy tranquil sleep, O wearied stream,
Still of the lovely Iris is thy dream;
The agony, the perils ne'er could last;
But with all these the rainbow, too, has past.

No life so wild and hopeless but some gleam
Doth lighten it, to make a future dream.
Thy course, O Stream, has been mid fears and woe,
But thou hast met the Rainbow in thy flow.

New York, November 3rd, 1865

Source: Emma Lazarus. Poems and Translations. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1867

View this poem on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website

Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) was an American poet, novelist, and translator, and a Jewish rights activist. Her poem The New Colossus is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York. Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, the well-known song by Irving Berlin uses last stanza of The New Colossus as its text.

Over the course of the year 2007, I took a photograph of Niagara Falls from a spot on the Canadian side of the Rainbow Bridge, where the concrete and the steel meet. I put the photographs into a videos - a short version and a longer one that includes weather conditions at the time. The changes in seasons are evident in the Niagara Mornings video. The top of the Grand View Marketplace structure is close to where the photographs were taken.

- Andrew Porteus, creator of the Niagara Falls Poetry Project, the Poetry Walking Tour of Niagara Falls, and the Niagara Mornings videos and book.

To see the longer version of the Niagara Mornings video (27 minutes), which includes weather conditions, click here

The Grand View Marketplace, at the base of Clifton Hill, offers refreshments and souvenirs with a stunning view of the Niagara Falls on one side and the Niagara Gorge and the start of the Niagara River rapids on the other side. Tickets can be purchased here for the Hornblower Niagara cruise to the base of the falls, and the Zipline to the Falls. There had been a regular ferry service across the river below the falls starting in 1818. In 1846, the Maid of the Mist steamboat ferry was launched, but after a suspension bridge was built just downriver in 1848 the Maid of the Mist didn't make enough money as a ferry service to remain viable.It started offering sightseeing cruises to the base of the falls from both the American and Canadian sides. On the American side, the Maid of the Mist still runs the cruises, but on the Canadian side the cruises have been run by Hornblower Niagara since 2014.