One wishes to go on. On this great river one could glide forever-and here we discover the definition of bliss, salvation, Heaven, all the old Mediterranean dreams: a journey from wonder to wonder, drifting through eternity into ever-deeper, always changing grandeur, through beauty continually surpassing itself: the ultimate Homeric voyage.

Mountains, solitude and the moon until the journey's end? The river holds the lost road of the sky; the shape of eternity?

What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn’t have any doubt — it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn’t want to go anywhere else.” — Hal Boyle.

The life of a godly man is like a river, not like a stagnant pool or a dead sea. It is ever in motion, sometimes sparkling in the sunbeam, and sometimes shivering in the clouds; sometimes chanting through scenery as beautiful as Eden, and sometimes moaning through districts of miserable desolation; sometimes clear as the day, and sometimes black as the night. Still it is ever moving to its ocean destiny — progress is its law, infinitude is its home.

Translation: Sonorous immensity of the seas of Harmony Where dreams like ships that shake in the profound, Voyage to the unknown, their sails bent to infinity, Billowing with anguish in the gusts of Sound.

Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.

As ever approachable and never attainable,/ the journey ventures on and on/ Without limit and borders/ And with full openness toward the infinite possibilities.

There is something in the scenery of a broad river equivalent to culture and civilization. Its channel conducts our thoughts as well as bodies to classic and famous ports, and allies us to all that is fair and great.

Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.

What a view, I said again. The river was blank and mindless with beauty. It was the most glorious thing I have ever seen. But it was not seeing, really. For once it was not just seeing. It was beholding. I beheld the river in its icy pit of brightness, in its far-below sound and indifference, in its large coil and tiny points and flashes of the moon, in its long sinuous form, in its uncomprehending consequence.

The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go.

The Mississippi and its paddle boats, and the rivers of Bengal and their gleaming steamers evoked a similar atmosphere of romance, of long, song-filled voyages, high winds and lonely sunsets.

"From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever."

In these three words: It is a Joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to me, were shewed three heavens, as thus: For the joy, I understood the pleasure of the Father; and for the bliss, the worship of the Son; and for the endless satisfying, the Holy Ghost. The Father is pleased, the Son is worshipped, the Holy Ghost is satisfied.