Date: 1855

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

— Whitman, Walt (1819-1892)

Date: 1890

"Have you got a brook in your little heart, / Where bashful flowers blow, / And blushing birds go down to drink, / And shadows tremble so?"

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1890

"The wizard-fingers never rest, / The purple brook within the breast / Still chafes its narrow bed."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

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: 1921

"I know what my heart is like / Since your love died: / It is like a hollow ledge / Holding a little pool / Left there by the tide, / A little tepid pool, / Drying inward from the edge."

— Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892-1950)

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: 1946

"Icebergs behoove the soul / (both being self-made from elements least visible) / to see them so: fleshed, fair, erected indivisible."

— Bishop, Elizabeth (1911-1979)