Date: 1815

The wavering motions of the mind are like "quivering light" reflected off a confined "crystal flood" in a brass cistern

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1818

"The lake unruffled [i.e., the mind], will reflect / A picture fair of earth and skies; / But how distorted its effect, / When ripples o'er the surface rise."

— Park, Thomas (1759-1834)

Date: 1822

"Thrice has a gloomy vision hunted me / As thus from sleep into the troubled day; / It shakes me as the tempest shakes the sea, / Leaving no figure upon memory's glass"

— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)

Date: 1824

"What do I say--a mirror of my heart? / Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? / Such as my feelings were and are, thou art; / And such as thou art were my passions long."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)

Date: March 13, 1847

"As the sea, when it lies clam and deeply transparent, yearns for heaven, so may the pure heart, when it is calm and deeply transparent, yearn for God. As the sea is made pure by yearning for heaven alone; so may the heart become pure by yearning only for the Good. As the sea mirrors the elevatio...

— Kierkegaard, Søren (1813-1855)