C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Swimming

The torrent roar’d; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside,
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.

Shakespeare.

I saw him beat the surges under him,
And ride upon their backs; be trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
The surge most swoln that met him.

Shakespeare.

There was one did battle with the storm
With careless, desperate force; full many times
His life was won and lost, as though he reck’d not—
No hand did aid him, and he aided none—
Alone he breasted the broad wave, alone
That man was sav’d.

Maturin.

How many a time have I
Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring
The wave all roughen’d; with a swimmer’s stroke
Flung the billows back from my drench’d hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine
Which kiss’d it like a wine-cup rising o’er
The waves as they rose, and prouder still
The loftier they uplifted me.

Byron.

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