OCEAN QUOTES IV
quotations about the ocean
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more.
BARRY CORNWALL
The Sea
We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic
VAN MORRISON
Into the Mystic
The great depths of the ocean are entirely unknown to us; soundings cannot reach them. What fanes in those remote depths, what beings live twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the waters, what is the organization of the animals we can scarcely conjecture?
JULES VERNE
Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
I turned away from the ocean
as not to fall for its plea
for it used to seduce and consume me
and there was this one night
a few years back and I was not yet accustomed to farewells
and just like now I stood waving long after the ship was gone.
But I was younger then and easily fooled
and the ocean was deep and dark and blue
and I took my shoes off to let the water freeze my bones.
I waded until I could no longer walk and it was too cold to swim but still
I kept on walking at the bottom of the sea for I could not tell the
difference between the ocean and the lack of someone I loved and I had
not yet learned how the task of moving on is as necessary as survival.
CHARLOTTE ERIKSSON
attributed, goodreads
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
THOMAS GRAY
Elegy in a Country Churchyard
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"
Tut! the best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
DOUGLAS JERROLD
Jerrold's Wit
The ocean is powerful, but not invincible. It is rich, but not inexhaustible. For humans to thrive in the coming centuries, we will have to be smarter about how we approach the 70 percent of our planet the ocean covers.
GARY E. KNELL
"Securing a Bold, Blue, and Prosperous Future for Our Ocean", National Geographic, January 27, 2017
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
Thanatopsis
It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Silmarillion