Explore "Niagara Dry" by James McIntyre on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It happened once in early spring, / While there did float great thick ice cakes, / That then a gale did quickly bring / Them all down from the upper lakes.
And from Buffalo to Lake Erie, / Across the entrance to river, / It was a scene of icebergs dreary, / Those who saw will remember ever.
Then gale blew up lake and river, / And left Niagara almost dry, / This a lady did discover / As above the Falls she cast her eye.
Such scene it had been witnessed never, / Since Israelites crossed the Red Sea, / When they had resolved forever / From Pharaoh's bondage to flee.
Lady she resolved to venture, / Proudly carrying British flag, / Erecting it in river's centre / In crevice of a rocky crag.
It seems like a romance by Bulwer, / How she captured Niagara, / But it was seen by Bishop Fuller, / Who did at sight of flag hurrah.
Ten thousand years may die away / Before another dry can tread, / In bottom of Niagara, / For she doth jealous guard her bed.
But ice her entrance did blockade, / And wind it kept the waters back, / So that a child could almost wade / Across the brink of cataract.