OCEAN QUOTES III
quotations about the ocean
He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"
And played familiar with his hoary locks.
ROBERT POLLOK
The Course of Time
The ocean is the throbbing heart of the universe, and its every wave a mound over those who have no graves.
MISS C. TALBOTT
attributed, Day's Collacon
To their inhabitants the sea is every thing. Their hopes and fears, their gains and losses, their joys and sorrows, are linked with it; and the largeness of the ocean has moulded their feelings and their characters. They are in a measure partakers of its immensity and its mystery. The commonest of their men have wrestled with the powers of the air, and the might of wind, and wave, and icy cold. The weakest of their women have felt the hallowing touch of sudden calamity, and of long, lonely, life-and-death, watches.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Daughter of Fife
And oh! if the wave could speak in any other language than that of its own harsh thunder, how many tales of agony and suffering might it unfold!
PETER WHITTLE
Marina; or, An historical and descriptive account of Southport, Lytham, and Blackpool
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
Stops with the shore.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
There was a magic about the sea. People were drawn to it. People wanted to love by it, swim in it, play in it, look at it. It was a living thing that was as unpredictable as a great stage actor: it could be calm and welcoming, opening its arms to embrace it's audience one moment, but then could explode with its stormy tempers, flinging people around, wanting them out, attacking coastlines, breaking down islands. It had a playful side too, as it enjoyed the crowd, tossed the children about, knocked lilos over, tipped over windsurfers, occasionally gave sailors helping hands; all done with a secret little chuckle.
CECELIA AHERN
The Gift
In front of the ocean, man faces infinity, life, death.
ALAIN CARAYOL
"The sea is not another country", The Eye of Photography, January 28, 2017
The ocean is home to all of us, and some part of us knows that.
SHEILA HURST
"Author's Book Inspired By Woods Hole And The Ocean", Cape News, January 18, 2017
I will mount a long wind some day and break the heavy waves,
And set my cloudy sail straight and bridge the deep, deep sea.
LI BAI
"The Hard Road"
The ocean is a big place, even for a whale.
KIERAN MULVANEY
"The loneliest whale in the world", Taranaki Daily News, January 27, 2017
The ocean and the wind and the stars and the moon will all teach you many things.
JANE ROBERTS
Emir's Education In The Proper Use of Magical Powers
Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.
HERMANN BROCH
foreword, The Spell
What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.
WERNER HERZOG
attributed, Beowulf on Film: Adaptations and Variations
And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And they'll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrow's sky
And I will never grow so old again
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
VAN MORRISON
"Sweet Thing"
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
THOMAS GRAY
Elegy in a Country Churchyard
Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
But to the lover of nature--and who has the courage to avow himself aught else?--the sea-shore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep of ever-shifting waters, the flying mist of foam breaking away into a gray and ghostly distance down the beach, the eternal drone of ocean, mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in the parlors by night--all these are active sources of a passive pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark blue sky wherein great silvery masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance--tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotus, is not this a diversion well worth your having?
GEORGE ARNOLD
"Why Thomas Was Discharged", Stories by American Authors
Hail, thou multitudinous ocean! Thy fluctuating waters wash the varied shores of the world, and while they disjoin nations whom a nearer connection would involve in eternal war, they circulate their arts and their labors, and give health and plenty to mankind.
CHRISTOPH STURM
attributed, Day's Collacon
Ye waves
That o'er th' interminable ocean wreathe
Your crisped smiles.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Chained
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
Thanatopsis