quotations about the Thames River
The Thames is the life and soul of London.
A.D.
"The Banks and Bosom of the Thames", The Metropolitan, Volume 41
Flow on in glory, still flow on, O Thames, unto the sea,
Through glories gone, through grandeurs here, through greatness still to be:
Through the free homes of England flow, and may yet higher fames,
Still nobler glories, star your course, O my own native Thames!
WILLIAM COX BENNETT
"The Glories of Our Thames", Songs of a Song Writer
Thou too, great father of the British floods!
With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods;
Where towering oaks their growing honours rear,
And future navies on thy shores appear.
Not Neptune's self from all her streams receives
A wealthier tribute than to thine he gives.
No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,
No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear.
Nor Po so swells the fabling poet's lays,
While led along the skies his current strays,
As thine, which visits Windsor's famed abodes,
To grace the mansion of our earthly gods:
Nor all his stars above a lustre show,
Like the bright beauties on thy banks below;
Where Jove, subdued by mortal passion still,
Might change Olympus for a nobler hill.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Windsor Forest"
London waxed and waned and waxed, fed always by the silvery lifeline of the Thames.
DAVID PIPER
The Companion Guide to London
Let the Rhine by blue and bright
In its path of liquid light,
Where the red grapes fling a beam
Of glory on the stream;
Let the gorgeous beauty there
Mingle all that's rich and fair;
Yet to me it ne'er could be
Like that river great and free,
The Thames! the mighty Thames!
ELIZA COOK
"The Thames", Poems
We could be on the Thames once a week cleaning it up. I've been motivated by the fact I live in London and the Thames River is the defining feature of this town. I don't think a lot of people realize we have, right downtown in the heart of the city, anglers fishing for one of the 90 different breeds of fish that live in the river. It's a pretty important and sensitive environmental ecosystem.
TOM CULL
"Thames River clean up efforts growing", The Londoner, April 4, 2014
But now this mighty flood, upon his voyage prest
(That found how with his strength his beauties still increased,
From where brave Windsor stood on tiptoe to behold
The fair and goodly Thames, so far as ere he could,
With kingly houses crowned, of more than earthly pride,
Upon his either banks, as he along doth glide)
With wonderful delight doth his long course pursue,
Where Oatlands, Hampton Court, and Richmond he doth view,
Then Westminster the next great Thames doth entertain;
That vaunts her palace large, and her most sumptuous fane:
The land's tribunal seat that challengeth for hers,
The crowning of our kings, their famous sepulchres.
Then goes he on along by that more beauteous strand,
Expressing both the wealth and bravery of the land.
(So many sumptuous bowers within so little space
The all-beholding sun scarce sees in all his race.)And on by London leads, which like a crescent lies,
Whose windows seem to mock the star-befreckled skies;
Besides her rising spires, so thick themselves that show,
As do the bristling reeds within his banks that grow.
There sees his crowded wharfs, and people-pestered shores,
His bosom overspread with shoals of labouring oars:
With that most costly bridge that doth him most renown,
By which he clearly puts all other rivers down.
MICHAEL DRAYTON
"The Seventeenth Song"
Thames, matron Thames,
That ebbest back
From the sea;
Oh! in thee
There are emblems
Of life's track:
We, too, would, like thee, regain,
If we might, our greener hours;
We, too, mourn our vanished flowers,
But in vain.
ALEXANDER HUME BUTLER
"Thames", Poems written in Barracks
From his oozy bed
Old father Thames advanced his reverend head;
His tresses dropp'd with dews, and o'er the stream
His shining horns diffused a golden gleam:
Graved on his urn appear'd the moon, that guides
His swelling waters, and alternate tides;
The figured streams in waves of silver roll'd,
And on their banks Augusta rose in gold.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Windsor Forest"
Fifteen feet away, the wide River Thames rolled past, dark and deep and mysterious in the sullen not-quite-sunrise. I closed my eyes and listened to the murky waves, lapping and gurgling against the brick palace walls. This close, the river's music ought to have overwhelmed me. Strain as I might, however, I couldn't hear more than a few muted, dissonant notes. "It's no use," I said at last--and then a faint melody, high and tremulous, emerged from the discord. I went still. The song did not peter out, but instead swelled louder, spilling itself out before me: Wild Magic, a true song-spell. And not only that, but a song-spell I could understand, one for calling up mist. It reminded me of the song-spell I'd sung when the King's men had come, though of course there were differences. This was the Thames, after all.
AMY BUTLER GREENFIELD
Chantress Alchemy
The moonlight rests, with solemn smile,
On sylvan shore and willowy isle:
While Thames, beneath the imaged beam,
Rolls on his deep and silent stream.
The wasting wind of autumn sighs:
The oak's discolored foliage flies:
The grove, in deeper shadow cast,
Waves darkly in the eddying blast.
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
"Genius of the Thames"
Fair Thames she haunts, and every neighb'ring grove,
Sacred to soft recess and gentle love.
MATTHEW PRIOR
"Cloe Hunting", The Poetical Works of Matthew Prior
The Thames was beautiful, dark, and swift beneath the billion yellow and white lights of the city ...
CHARLES FINCH
The Last Enchantments
There is no river in the world to be compared for majesty and the witchery of association, to the Thames; it impresses even the unreading and unimaginative watcher with a solemnity which he cannot account for, as it rolls under his feet and swirls past the buttresses of its many bridges; he may think, as he experiences the unusual effect, that it is the multiplicity of buildings which line its banks, or the crowd of sea-craft which floats upon its surface, or its own extensive spread. In reality he feels, although he cannot explain it, the countless memories which hang for ever like a spiritual fog over its rushing current.
HUME NISBET
"The Phantom Model", Gaslit Nightmares
The river Thames that by our door doth pass,
His first beginning is but small and shallow;
Yet, keeping on his course, grows to a sea.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
his authorship of this play has been rejected by modern scholars who sometimes attribute it to Wentworth Smith or William Sly, The Life and Death of Thomas, Lord Cromwell
One walks the Thames less for the scenery than for the history. Almost every mile brings to mind a historical event or a work of art or literature.
JONATHAN SCHNEER
preface, The Thames
The Thames was there before London was, and the Thames is why London is where it is.
DAVID PIPER
The Companion Guide to London
Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew
(Twenty bridges or twenty-two)
Wanted to know what the River knew,
For they were young, and the Thames was old
And this is the tale that River told ...
RUDYARD KIPLING
"The River's Tale", Writings in Prose and Verse
Thames' fruitful tides
Slow through the vale in silver volumes play.
ELIJAH FENTON
"An Ode to the Right. Hon. John Lord Gower", The Poems of Pomfret and Fenton
Oh, 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.
JOHN DENHAM
The Thames