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From “For America at War”
WITHIN the town of Buffalo | |
| Are prosy men with leaden eyes. | |
| Like ants they worry to and fro, | |
| (Important men in Buffalo!) | |
| But only twenty miles away | 5 |
| A deathless glory is at play— | |
| Niagara, Niagara. | |
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| The women buy their lace and cry, | |
| “Oh, such a delicate design!” | |
| And over ostrich feathers sigh, | 10 |
| By counters there in Buffalo. | |
| The children haunt the trinket shops; | |
| They buy false-faces, bells and tops— | |
| Forgetting great Niagara. | |
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| Within the town of Buffalo | 15 |
| Are stores with garnets, sapphires, pearls, | |
| Rubies, emeralds aglow, | |
| Opal chains in Buffalo— | |
| Cherished symbols of success. | |
| They value not your rainbow dress, | 20 |
| Niagara, Niagara. | |
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| The shaggy meaning of her name— | |
| This Buffalo, this recreant town— | |
| Sharps and lawyers prune and tame. | |
| Few pioneers in Buffalo, | 25 |
| Except young lovers flushed and fleet; | |
| And winds halooing down the street, | |
| “Niagara, Niagara.” | |
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| The journalists are sick of ink, | |
| Boy-prodigals burnt out with wine | 30 |
| By night where white and red lights blink— | |
| The eyes of Death, in Buffalo. | |
| And only twenty miles away | |
| Are starlight rocks and healing spray— | |
| Niagara, Niagara. | 35 |
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| By the quaint market proudly loom | |
| Church walls. Kind altars gleam within, | |
| Confession boxes crowd the gloom, | |
| Baptismal fonts, in Buffalo. | |
| St. Michael fights the dragon drear; | 40 |
| The stations of the cross are here. | |
| But my church is Niagara. | |
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| Above the town a tiny bird, | |
| A shining speck at sleepy dawn, | |
| Forgets the ant-hill so absurd— | 45 |
| This self-important Buffalo. | |
| Descending twenty miles away | |
| He bathes his wings at break of day— | |
| Niagara! Niagara! | |
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| What marching men of Buffalo | 50 |
| Flood the streets in rash crusade? | |
| Fools-to-free-the-world, they go, | |
| Primeval hearts from Buffalo. | |
| Red cataracts of France today | |
| Awake, three thousand miles away, | 55 |
| An echo of Niagara, | |
| The cataract Niagara! | |
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