stream

   It is this backward motion toward the source, Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in. The tribute of the current to the source.

—Frost, Robert Lee

I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of water's murmuring Along a shelving bankof turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightst in dream.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life and bid thee feed By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

—Blake,William

The horse that comes from the road, The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call; Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all.

—Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)

  The dark-lit stream has drowned the Future and the Past.

—Thomas, (Philip) Edward

  Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream.

—Milton,John

And sad,Oh sad, that glen with one thin stream He met his death in; and a farmer told me There was but one small bird to shoot: it sang 'Better Beast and know your end, and die Than Man with murderous angels in his head.'

—Devlin, Denis

Fish say, they have their stream and pond; But is there anything beyond?

—Brooke, Rupert Chawner

O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

—Denham, SirJohn

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;ö Turn whereso'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

—Wordsworth,William

They talk about their Pilgrim blood, Their birthright high and holy! A mountain-stream that ends in mud Methinks is melancholy.

—Lowell,James Russell

   A painted meadow, or a purling stream.

—Addison,Joseph

He seems to paint with tinted steam.

—Constable,John

And thries hadde she been at Jerusalem; She hadde passed manya straunge strem; At Rome she hadde been, and at Boloigne, In Galice at Seint-Jame, and at Coloigne.

—Chaucer, Geoffrey

Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort or the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

—Empson, Sir William

Fumbling silence in the White House seeps out over the country like a cold fog over a river bed where no stream runs.

—Acheson, Dean Gooderham

But no oneshall find merowing againstthestream.I care not who knows itöI write for the general amusement.

—Scott, Sir Walter

You are a human boy, my young friend. A human boy.O glorious to be a human boy!† O running stream of sparkling joy To be a soaring human boy!

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep; Where the spent lights quiver and gleam; Where the salt weed sways in the stream.

—Arnold, Matthew

Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise.But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation.When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.

—Keynes (of Tilton),John Maynard, 1st Baron

Our composition must be more accurate in the beginning and end thaninthemidst, and intheendmore than in the beginning; for through the midst the stream bears us.

—Jonson, Ben

   He nursed the feelings these dull scenes produce, And loved to stop beside the opening sluice; Where the small stream, confined in narrow bound, Ran with a dull, unvaried, sad'ning sound; Where all presented to the eye or ear, Oppressed the soul! with misery, grief, and fear.

—Crabbe, George

But who can turn the stream of destiny, Or break the chain of strong necessity?

—Spenser, Edmund

From this foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilize the whole world. From this filthy sewer pure gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish, here civilizationworks its miracles and civilized man isturned almost into a savage.

—Tocqueville, Alexis Charles Henri Cle¤  rel de

Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain'or 'train'do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance.It is nothing jointed; it flows. A'river'or a 'stream'are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.

—James,William

You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at work within the stream of your experience.

—James,William

Come to me in the silence of the night; Come in the speaking silence of a dream; Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright As sunlight on a stream; Come back in tears, O memory, hope, love of finished years.

—Rossetti, Christina Georgina

Crossing the striplingThames at Bab-lock-hithe, Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 32 As the slow punt swings round.

—Arnold, Matthew

The last bear, shot drinking in the Dakotas Loped under wires that span the mountain stream. Keen instruments, strung to a vast precision Bind town to town and dream to ticking dream.

—Crane, (Harold) Hart