Lapham’s Quarterly

Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious.

If you stain clear water with filth, you will never find a drink.

When you drink water, think of its source.

Every memory everyone has ever had will eventually be underwater.

He who would have clear water should go to the fountainhead.

I drink for the thirst to come.

The history of the land has been written very largely in water.

Every fool becomes a philosopher after ten days of rain.

There’s folks ’ud hold a sieve under the pump and expect to carry away the water.

The smell of rain is rich with life.

To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe.

Till taught by pain, / Men really know not what good water’s worth.

I ride rough waters and shall sink with no one to save me.

The United States has virtually set up an empire on impounded and redistributed water.

Best is water.

The mill will never grind with water that is past.

Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water.

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

Water is the readiest means of making friends with nature.

Far water cannot quench near fire.

Iron may break gold, but water remains whole.

I came upon no wine, / So wonderful as thirst.

Seek not water, only show you are thirsty, / That water may spring up all around you.

Spit not in the well; you may have to drink its water.

Water astonishing and difficult altogether makes a meadow and a stroke.

He knows the water best who has waded through it.

These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.

No poems can please long, nor live, that are written by water drinkers.

A fool and water will go the way they are diverted.

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, / And drinks, and gapes for drink again.

Too often, where we need water we find guns.

There is no small pleasure in sweet water.

Can you draw sweet water from a foul well?

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain there would be no life.

What water gives, water takes away.

Water has many ways of reminding us that when we are in it we are out of our element.

It is wretched business to be digging a well just as you’re dying of thirst.

Water is the first principle of everything.

Water its living strength first shows, / When obstacles its course oppose.

There’s plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.

The waters are nature’s storehouse, in which she locks up her wonders.