Date: 1855

"This is the tasteless water of souls .... this the true sustenance."

— Whitman, Walt (1819-1892)

Date: 1893

"Thy mind is like a crystal brook / Wherein clean creatures live at ease / In sun-bright waves or shady nook."

— Gilder, Richard Watson (1844-1809)

Date: 1922

"My soul has grown deep like the rivers."

— Hughes, Langston (1902-1967))

Date: 1922

"You yielded to my touch with gentle grace, / And though my passion was a mighty wave / That buried you beneath its strong embrace, / You were yet happy in the moment's grave."

— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)

Date: 1922

"The joy in your maturity at length, / The peace that filled my soul like cooling wine, / When you responded to my tender strength, / And pressed your heart exulting into mine."

— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)

Date: 1922

"The mists will shroud me on the utter height, / The salty, brimming waters of my breast / Will mingle with the fresh dews of the night / To bathe my spirit hankering to rest."

— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)

Date: 1990

"The noise the body makes / when the body meets / the soul over the soul's ocean and penumbra / is the old sound of up-and-down, in-and-out, / a lump of muscle chug-chugging blood / into the ear; a lover's / heart-shaped tongue; / flesh rocking flesh until flesh comes; / the butcher working / at ...

— Lee, Li-Young (b .1957)

Date: 2002

"The river rises in the mind, but empties nowhere, / Its hair naked in naked branches."

— Wright, Charles (b. 1935)

Date: 2015

"And yes, mortal knells / in sleepless hours, hollow knocks of empty / boats against a dock but still the mind / is a meadow, the heart an ocean even though / it burns."

— Young, Dean (b. 1955)