Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control

Stops with the shore.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 179.

The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite,—a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm

By thoughts supplied, nor any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

Passions are likened best to floods and streams:

The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): The Silent Lover.

There was silence deep as death,

And the boldest held his breath

For a time.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Battle of the Baltic.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death,

And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd

On lips that are for others; deep as love,—

Deep as first love, and wild with all regret.

Oh death in life, the days that are no more!

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Princess. Part iv. Line 36.

All the beauty of the world, 't is but skin deep.

Ralph Venning (1620(?)-1673): Orthodoxe Paradoxes. (Third edition, 1650.) The Triumph of Assurance, p. 41.

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York,

And all the clouds that loured upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;

And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,—

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 1.

By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap

To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,

Or dive into the bottom of the deep,

Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,

And pluck up drowned honour by the locks.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.

My way of life

Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf;

And that which should accompany old age,

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not look to have; but in their stead

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3.

Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,

And falls on the other.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.

The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,

The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 10.

Oh pilot, 't is a fearful night!

There's danger on the deep.

Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839): The Pilot.

There is a silence where hath been no sound,

There is a silence where no sound may be,—

In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea,

Or in the wide desert where no life is found.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Sonnet. Silence.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 15.

Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies.

Methinks her patient sons before me stand,

Where the broad ocean leans against the land.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Traveller. Line 282.

Fishes that tipple in the deep,

Know no such liberty.

Richard Lovelace (1618-1658): To Althea from Prison, ii.

Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,

And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;

Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat

To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.

Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining,

And thought of convincing while they thought of dining:

Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;

Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): Retaliation. Line 31.

Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.

Britannia needs no bulwarks,

No towers along the steep;

Her march is o'er the mountain waves,

Her home is on the deep.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Ye Mariners of England.

A life on the ocean wave!

A home on the rolling deep,

Where the scattered waters rave,

And the winds their revels keep!

Epes Sargent (1813-1881): Life on the Ocean Wave.

Which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath and infinite despair?

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 73.

That practis'd falsehood under saintly shew,

Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 122.

The deep of night is crept upon our talk,

And nature must obey necessity.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act iv. Sc. 3.

With grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd

A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat, and public care;

And princely counsel in his face yet shone,

Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood,

With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as night

Or summer's noontide air.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 300.

We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine,

But search of deep philosophy,

Wit, eloquence, and poetry;

Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): On the Death of Mr. William Harvey.

Plough the watery deep.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book iii. Line 357.

Potations pottle-deep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Rock'd in the cradle of the deep,

I lay me down in peace to sleep.

Emma Willard (1787-1870): The Cradle of the Deep.

Glen.  I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

Hot.  Why, so can I, or so can any man;

But will they come when you do call for them?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 11.

Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 327.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.

Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;

Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.

Sir John Denham (1615-1668): Cooper's Hill. Line 189.

My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,

That fools should be so deep-contemplative;

And I did laugh sans intermission

An hour by his dial.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark

Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home;

'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and look brighter when we come.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 123.