"I wonder how long you've been a roarin' At this infernal rate: I wonder if all you've been a pourin' Could be ciphered on a slate. "I wonder how such a thund'rin' sounded When all New York was woods; I suppose some Indians have been drownded When rains have raised your floods. "I wonder if wild stags and buffaloes Hav'nt stood where now I stand; Well, 'spose--bein' scared at first--they stub'd their toes, I wonder where they'd land! "I wonder if the rainbow's been a shinin' Since sunrise at creation; And this waterfall been underminin' With constant spatteration! "That Moses never mentioned ye, I've wonder'd. While other things describin'; My conscience! how loud you must have thunder'd While the deluge was subsidin'! "My thoughts are strange, magnificent, and deep While I look down on thee. Oh! what a splendid place for washing sheep Niagara would be! "And oh! what a tremendous water power Is wasted o'er its edge! One man might furnish all the world with flour With a single privilege. "I wonder how many times the lakes have all Been emptied over here? Why Clinton didn't feed the Grand Canal From hence, I think is queer." The most graceful verses on Niagara ever written by a resident are the following by the late Colonel Porter, who was an artist both with the pencil and the pen. They were written for a young relative in playful explanation of a sketch he had drawn at the top of a page in her album, representing the Falls in the distance, and an Indian chief and two Europeans in the foreground: "An Artist, underneath his sign (a masterpiece, of course) Had written, to prevent mistakes, 'This represents a horse': So ere I send my Album Sketch, lest connoisseurs should err, I think it well my Pen should be my Art's interpreter. "A chieftain of the Iroquois, clad in a bison's skin, Had led two travelers through the wood, La Salle and Hennepin. He points, and there they, standing, gaze upon the ceaseless flow Of waters falling as they fell two hundred years ago. "Those three are gone, and little heed our worldly gain or loss-- The Chief, the Soldier of the Sword, the Soldier of the Cross. One died in battle, one in bed, and one by secret foe; But the waters fall as once they fell two hundred years ago. "Ah, me! what myriads of men, since then, have come and gone; What states have risen and decayed, what prizes lost and won; What varied tricks the juggler, Time, has played with all below: But the waters fall as once they fell two hundred years ago.