Lapham’s Quarterly

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

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

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

Far water cannot quench near fire.

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

Every fool becomes a philosopher after ten days of rain.

Iron may break gold, but water remains whole.

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

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

Best is water.

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

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

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

There is no small pleasure in sweet water.

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

Too often, where we need water we find guns.

The smell of rain is rich with life.

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

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

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

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

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

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

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

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

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

These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.

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

He knows the water best who has waded through it.

When you drink water, think of its source.

Every memory everyone has ever had will eventually be underwater.

Can you draw sweet water from a foul well?

I drink for the thirst to come.

Water is the readiest means of making friends with nature.

The mill will never grind with water that is past.

What water gives, water takes away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Water is the first principle of everything.