“How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice...”
The Mill on the Floss (1860)
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George Eliot 300
English novelist, journalist and translator 1819–1880Related quotes

“How it should be in Heaven I know, for I was there.
By its river. Listening to its birds.”
"How It Should Be in Heaven" (1986), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz and Robert Hass
New Poems (1985-1987)
Context: How it should be in Heaven I know, for I was there.
By its river. Listening to its birds.
In its season: in summer, shortly after sunrise.
I would get up and run to my thousand works
And the garden was superterrestrial, owned by imagination.
“The sun has burst the sky
Because I love you
And the river its banks.”
Poem The sun has burst the sky http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sun-has-burst-the-sky/

“That crystal river keeps its pools of blue water free from all stain above its shallow bed, and slowly draws along its fair stream of greenish hue. One would scarce believe it was moving; so softly along its shady banks, while the birds sing sweet in rivalry, it leads along in a shining flood its waters that tempt to sleep.”
Caeruleas Ticinus aquas et stagna uadoso
perspicuus seruat turbari nescia fundo
ac nitidum uiridi lente trahit amne liquorem.
uix credas labi: ripis tam mitis opacis
argutos inter uolucrum certamine cantus
somniferam ducit lucenti gurgite lympham.
Book IV, lines 82–87
Punica
"Mirtsa Schaffy on Eyes", p. 228.
Poetry of the Orient, 1865 edition
Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter I: The Earth; 1. The Starting Point (p. 11)

“Soon, at a torrent's banks, I find its flood
blocks my advance while bandits follow me.”
E giungo ad un torrente, e riserrato
Quinci da i ladri son, quindi dal rio.
Canto XII, stanza 34 (tr. Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)