“Like a mermaid in sea-weed, she dreams awake, trembling in her soft and chilly nest.”

“Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law,
Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will.”

“THIRD WATCHER Let her speak. Don't interrupt. She knows words that mermaids taught her… I'm falling asleep in order to hear her… Go on, sister, go on… My heart aches because I wasn't you when you dreamed at the seashore…”

“Thou breeze,
That mak'st an organ of the mighty sea,
Obedient to thy wilful phantasies,
Provoke him not to scorn; but soft and low,
As pious maid awakes her aged sire,
On tiptoe stealing, whisper in his ear
The tidings of the young god's victory.”

“His mind fell asleep. His wits fell awake. His cock trembled like a harp-string.”

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”

“And when she dreams, she dreams of a girl who was lost at sea but one day found the shore.”

“Plead, Sleep, my cause, and make her soft like thee,
That she in peace may wake and pity me.”

“To live in such a place was, for Isabel, to hold to her ear all day a shell of the sea of the past. This vague eternal rumour kept her imagination awake.”

“The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn;
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.”