quotations about the Thames River
Our floods queen, Thames, for ships and swans is crowned.
MICHAEL DRAYTON
"To the River Ankor"
It is a mere rivulet compared with the greatest rivers in the world: the Nile in Africa, the Mississippi in North America, the Amazon in South America, the Ganges in India, the Yangtze in China, to name only a few. It is shorter and less impressive than the Danube, the Rhine, the Loire or the Seine in Europe; it is not even the longest river in Britain. Yet who would deny that the Thames is more an avenue of history than any other waterway, that it is a national river in a way that the other rivers are not?
JONATHAN SCHNEER
preface, The Thames
Even now, methinks, in solemn guise,
By yonder willowy islet grey,
I see thee, sedge-crowned Genius! rise,
And point the glories of the way.
Tall reeds around thy temples play;
Thy hair the liquid crystal gems:
To thee I pour the votive lay,
Oh Genius of the silver Thames!
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
"Genius of the Thames"
It's also interesting to think about what modern London has in common with its earliest settlers. The Thames River is one example, although the relationship Victorian Londoners shared with the city's heritage landmark was a lot different to say the least. As we continue to debate what our future relationship with the Thames will be like, photographs of a major 1883 flood remind us why it was necessary to tame the river in the first place.
CHRIS MONTANINI
"London's history in pictures", The Londoner, November 16, 2016
The Thames is as inexhaustible a subject as English history itself.
JONATHAN SCHNEER
preface, The Thames
The Thames is like a great tidal pool ... It not only rushes on its way but goes up and down, tossing things and people, sucking entire lives down and out into the vast sea.
KAREN HARPER
The Tidal Poole
My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames along the wanton valley strays.
Thames! the most loved of all the Ocean's sons,
By his old sire, to his embraces runs.
J. DENHAM
attributed, Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson
The River Thames is ancient; older than England, older than humanity, even older than the British Isles themselves. Its life cycle operates on a geological timescale. The river is almost a living being, writhing sinuously across its flood plain, eroding its banks and altering its channel, constantly changing.
ANDREW SARGENT
The Story of the Thames