The highest excellence is like (that of) water.

Hill tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run;
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.

The highest good is like water, for the good of water is that it nourishes everything without striving. It occupies the place which all men think bad [i.e., the lowest level].17 [102d] It is thus that Tao in the world is like a river going down the valley to the ocean.18 [102e] The most gentle thing in the world overrides the most hard.19 [102g] How do coves and oceans become kings of a hundred rivers? Because they are good at keeping low — That is how they are kings of the hundred rivers.20 [102f] Nothing in the world is weaker than water, But it has no better in overcoming the hard.21 [101a]

If gold has been prized because it is the most inert element, changeless and incorruptible, water is prized for the opposite reason — its fluidity, mobility, changeability that make it a necessity and a metaphor for life itself. To value gold over water is to value economy over ecology, that which can be locked up over that which connects all things.

Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams.

Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free,
First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea.

Content, our life advancing
To a life that shall abide,
Each flame its worth enhancing,
The soul is glorified.
The starry host shall sink then
To bright and living wine,
The golden draught we drink then,
And stars ourselves shall shine.

Love released, lives woundless,
No separation more;
While life swells free and boundless
As a sea without a shore.
One night of glad elation,
One joy that cannot die,
And the sun of all creation
Is the face of the Most High.

Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice — almighty gold.

How beautiful the water is! </br> To me 'tis wondrous fair— </br> No spot can ever lonely be </br> If water sparkle there— </br> It hath a thousand tongues of mirth, </br> Of grandeur, or delight; </br> And every heart is gladder made </br> When water greets the sight.

For such a sovereign joy, a prize so high
No silver and no gold could ever buy.

Se tout le ciel estoit de feuilles d'or,
Et li airs fust estellés d'argent fin,
Et tous les vens fussent pleins de tresor,
Et les gouttes fussent toutes florin
D'eaue de mer, et pleust soir et matin
Richesses, biens, honeurs, joiaux, argent,
Tant que rempli en fust toute la gent,
La terre aussi en fust mouillee toute,
Et fusse nu, – de tel pluie et tel vent
Ja sur mon cors n'en cherroit une goutte.

Under various names, I have praised only you, rivers! You are milk and honey and love and death and dance. From a spring in hidden grottoes, seeping from mossy rocks, Where a goddess pours live water from a pitcher, At clear streams in the meadow, where rills murmur underground, Your race and my race begin, and amazement, and quick passage.

Nothing like alms: great is the virtue of this practice, when the alms is poured forth from pure stores; for it is like a fountain discharging mud, when it issues from unjust stores, but when from just gains, it is as a limpid and pure stream... This fountain is better than that in Paradise (Genesis 2:10); a fountain, not dividing into four heads, but reaching unto Heaven itself: this gives birth to that river which springs up into eternal life (John 4:14): on this let Death light, and like a spark it is extinguished by the fountain: such, wherever it drops, are the mighty blessings it causes. This quenches, even as a spark, the river of fire: this so strangles that worm, as naught else can do. (Mark 9:44) He that has this, shall not gnash his teeth... Better to possess such a fountain, than to have fountains running with gold.

By all that's good and glorious.