You can't argue with a river, it isgoing to flow.You can dam it up†put it to useful purposes†deflect it, but you can't argue with it.

-Acheson, Dean Gooderham
On the fruitlessness of keeping Russian fishermen from waters that should be off limits. Quoted in David S McLellan Dean Acheson: The State DepartmentYears (1976).

The Knight in the triumph of his heart made several 6 reflections on thegreatness of the British Nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of Popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that theThames was thenoblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the Seven Wonders of the World; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

-Addison,Joseph
  In The Spectator, no.383, 20 May.

But the majestic river floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land, Into the frosty starlight.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Poems:  A New Edition,'Sohrab and Rustum', l.875^7.

I'll love you dear, I'll love you Till China and Africa meet And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street, I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven starsgo squawking Like geese about the sky.

-Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)
  'As I  Walked Out One Evening'.

Time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weightyand solid.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  The Advancement of Learning, bk.1.

The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Job 40:22^3.

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.In themidst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Revelation 22:1^2.

But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment whiteöthen melts for ever.

-Burns, Robert
  'Tam o' Shanter.  A  Tale'.

   In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

-Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
  'Kubla Khan', opening lines.

O Sleepless as the river under thee, Vaulting the sea, the prairies'dreaming sod, Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

-Crane, (Harold) Hart
  'To Brooklyn Bridge', in The Dial,  Jun.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.Fogonthe Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships† And hard byTemple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, atthevery heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^3  Bleak House, ch.1.

   U.S.A. is the slice of a continent.U.S.A. is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving picture theatres, a column of stock quotations rubbed out and written in bya Western Union boy on a black-board, a publiclibrary full of old newspapers and dogeared historybooks with protests scrawled in the margins in pencil.U.S.A. is the world's greatest rivervalley fringed with mountains and hills.U.S.A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with too many bankaccounts.U.S.A. is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery.U.S.A. is the letters at theend of anaddresswhenyouareaway from home.But mostly U.S.A. is the speech of the people

-Dos Passos,John Roderigo
  U.S. A.,'U.S. A.' (new prologue to collected trilogy).

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown godösullen, untamed and intractable,

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
Four Quartets,'The Dry Salvages', pt.1.

The river is within us, the sea is all about us.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
Four Quartets,'The Dry Salvages', pt.1.

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoeö Sailed on a river of crystal light, Into a sea of dew.

-Field, Eugene
  'Wynken, Blynken, and Nod'.

What use the green river, the gold place, if time and death pinned human in the pocket of my land not rest from taking underground the green all-willowed and white rose and bean flower and morning-mist picnic of song in pepper-pot breast of thrush?

-Frame,Janet Paterson also known as Jean PatersonFrame
Owls Do Cry, pt.1, ch.4.

On a tree bya river a little tom-tit Sang 'Willow, titwillow, titwillow!'

-Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)
  Ko-Ko's song, The Mikado, act 2.

Ol'Man River.

-Hammerstein, Oscar, II
   Title of song from Show Boat (music by Jerome Kern).

The riverbed, dried-up, half full of leaves. Us, listening to a river in the trees.

-Heaney, SeamusJustin
  TheHaw Lantern,'ForBernard and Jane McCabe', complete poem.

Where the pools are bright and deep, Where the grey trout lies asleep, Up the river and o'er the lea, That's the way for Billy and me.

-Hogg,James
  'A Boy's Song', stanza1. From  A Poetic Mirror 1829^31.