“I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.” – John Masefield, 1902
“His legs bestride the ocean; his rear’d arm
Crested the world; his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder.” – Shakespeare, “Antony and Cleopatra”, 1607
“Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.” – Matthew Arnold, 1867
“Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more ‘gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me” – John Burroughs, 1876
“Lighter than a cork I danced on the waves.” – Arthur Rimbaud, 1871
“A single breaker may recede, but the tide is evidently coming in.” – Thomas Babington, 1830
“Come as the winds come, when
Forests are rended,
Come as the waves come, when
Navies are stranded.” – Walter Scott, 1816
“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.” – Henry Beston, 1928
“Dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the sight of its ceaseless ebb and flow, and are apt, on the principles of that rude philosophy of sympathy and resemblance…to trace a subtle relation, a secret harmony, between its tides and the life of man.” – James George Frazer, 1922
“Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.” – T.S. Eliot, 1917
“Little drops of water
Little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.” – Julia Carney, 1845
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.” – W.B. Yeats, 1921
