“Long have you timidly waded
Holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea,
Rise again, nod to me, shout,
And laughingly dash with your hair.”

Source: Song of Myself

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Long have you timidly waded Holding a plank by the shore, Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, To jump off in the midst…" by Walt Whitman?
Walt Whitman photo
Walt Whitman 181
American poet, essayist and journalist 1819–1892

Related quotes

Mirkka Rekola photo

“The sea raises you to your feet. And dead calm.
Strands of light hold your hand. Now you have left
this shore. Now you are in the wind of an invisible sail.”

Mirkka Rekola (1931–2014) Finnish writer

Mirkka Rekola, Kuka lukee kanssasi (Who is Reading with You), 1990; Translated by Sari Hantula. Quoted at Mirkka Rekola http://www.electricverses.net/sakeet.php?poet=22&poem=645&language=3, at electricverses.net, accessed 20-03-2017.

Samuel Rutherford photo

“Be not cast down. If ye saw Him who is standing on the shore, holding out His arms to welcome you to land, ye would wade, not only through a sea of wrongs, but through hell itself to be with Him.”

Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) Scottish Reformed theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 253.

Peter Ustinov photo

“I'd rather be buried at sea than on the shore when I come to die. Will you stand by the plank, mates, so I can shake a friendly hand before I sink?”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

Billy Budd
Billy Budd (1962)

Silius Italicus photo

“Then the shouting of the sailors, which had long been rising from the open sea, filled all the shore with its sound; and, when the rowers all together brought the oars back sharply to their breasts, the sea foamed under the stroke of a hundred blades.”
At patulo surgens iam dudum ex aequore late nauticus implebat resonantia litora clamor, et simul adductis percussa ad pectora tonsis centeno fractus spumabat verbere pontus.

Book XI, lines 487–490
Punica

Brandon Sanderson photo

“When he was at the height of his ascendancy, he ordered his chair to be placed on the sea-shore as the tide was coming in. Then he said to the rising tide, "You are subject to me, as the land on which I am sitting is mine, and no one has resisted my overlordship with impunity. I command you, therefore, not to rise on to my land, nor to presume to wet the clothing or limbs of your master."”
Quod cum in maximo uigore floreret imperii, sedile suum in littore maris cum ascenderet statui iussit. Dixit autem mari ascendenti: "Tu mee dicionis es, et terra in qua sedeo mea est, nec fuit qui inpune meo resisteret imperio. Impero igitur tibi ne in terram meam ascendas, nec uestes uel membra dominatoris tui madefacere presumas."

Book VI, §1, pp. 366-9.
Historia Anglorum (The History of the English People)

Khaled Hosseini photo

Related topics