| C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. | | | | River |
| | | | The river knows the way to the sea: |
| Without a pilot it runs and falls, |
| Blessing all lands with its charity. |
Emerson. | 1 |
| | See the rivers, how they run, |
| Changeless to the changeless sea. |
Charles Kingsley. | 2 |
| | The Nile, forever new and old, |
| Among the living and the dead, |
| Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled. |
Longfellow. | 3 |
| | A little stream came tumbling from the height, |
| And struggling into ocean as it might. |
| Its bounding crystal frolick’d in the ray, |
| And gush’d from cliff to crag with saltless spray. |
Byron. | 4 |
| | And see the rivers how they run |
| Through woods and meads, in shade and sun; |
| Sometimes swift, sometimes slow, |
| Wave succeeding wave, they go |
| A various journey to the deep, |
| Like human life, to endless sleep! |
Dyer. | 5 |
| | Oh, river, gentle river! gliding on |
| In silence underneath this starless sky! |
| Thine is a ministry that never rests |
| Even while the living slumber. |
| * * * * * |
| Thou pausest not in thine allotted task, |
| Oh, darkling river! |
William Cullen Bryant. | 6 |
| | Oh, river! darkling river! what a voice |
| Is that thou utterest while all else is still— |
| The ancient voice that, centuries ago, |
| Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet |
| A weedy solitude by Tiber’s stream! |
William Cullen Bryant. | 7 | | |
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