Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Sea
There is sorrow on the sea, it cannot be quiet.
Jeremiah, xlix. Ver. 23.
What aileth thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord: at the presence of the God of Jacob.
Psalm cxiv. Verses 3, 5, 7.
He proceeded to drive over the billows, and the monsters of the deep sported beneath him on all sides from their recesses, nor were ignorant of their king. For joy the sea separated.
Buckley’s Homer.—The Iliad, Book XIII. Page 229.
Surely oak and threefold brass surrounded his heart, who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean.
Horace, by Buckley, Book I. Ode III. Line 6.
Hearts, sure, of brass they had, who tempted first
Rude seas that spare not what themselves have nursed.
Waller.—Battle of the Summer Islands, Canto II. Line 102.
It was a brave attempt! advent’rous he,
Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea;
And, leaving his dear native shores behind,
Trusted his life to the licentious wind.
Dr. Watts.—Lyric Poems, Launching into Eternity.
The adventurous man, who durst the deep explore,
Oppose the winds and tempt the shelfy shore,
Beneath his roof now tastes unbroken rest,
Enough with native wealth and plenty blest.
Congreve.—The Birth of the Muses.
The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free.
Barry Cornwall.—A Song.
A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast.
Allan Cunningham.—A Song, (Vol. IV.)
Seas rough with black winds and storms.
Milton.—Translation of Horace, Ode V. Book I.
I cannot, ’twixt the heaven and the main,
Descry a sail.
Shakespeare.—Othello, Act II. Scene 1. (A Gentleman to Montano.)
Betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin’s point.
Shakespeare.—Winter’s Tale, Act III. Scene 3. (Clown to a Shepherd.)
Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—
Then shriek’d the timid, and stood still the brave,
Then some leap’d overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;
And the sea yawn’d around her like a hell,
And down she suck’d with her the whirling wave,
Like one who grapples with his enemy,
And strives to strangle him before he die.
Byron.—Don Juan, Canto II. Stanza 52.
Tumultuous waves embroil’d the bellowing flood,
All trembling, deafen’d, and aghast we stood!
No more the vessel plough’d the dreadful wave,
Fear seized the mighty, and unnerved the brave.
Pope.—The Odyssey, Book XII. Line 241.
I saw a thousand fearful wracks:
A thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon:
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter’d in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,
As ’twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That woo’d the slymy bottom of the deep,
And mock’d the dead bones that lay scatter’d by.
Shakespeare.—King Richard III., Act I. Scene 4. (Clarence’s Dream.)
O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
Byron.—The Corsair, Canto I. Stanza 1.
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,
While Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.
Byron.—The Corsair.
Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,
Like Hope’s gay glance from Ocean’s troubled foam.
Byron.—The Corsair, Canto III. Stanza 18.
He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.
George Herbert.—Jacula Prudentum.
Praise the sea, but keep on land.
George Herbert.—Jacula Prudentum.
Unhappy youth! how art thou lost,
In what a sea of troubles toss’d.
Francis’ Horace.—Ode XXVII. Line 25.
The sea, that home of marvels.
W. E. Gladstone.—Juventus Mundi, p. 496. (8vo, 1869.)