Dismal River Culture

Famous quotes containing the words dismal, river and/or culture:

    O, I have passed a miserable night,
    So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
    That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
    I would not spend another such a night
    Though ‘twere to buy a world of happy days,
    So full of dismal terror was the time.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    I counted two and seventy stenches,
    All well defined and several stinks!
    Ye Nymphs that reign o’er sewers and sinks,
    The river Rhine, it is well known,
    Doth wash your city of Cologne;
    But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine
    Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

    I am writing to resist the view that Europe and civilization are going to Hell. If I am being “crucified for an idea”Mthat is, the coherent idea around which my muddles accumulated—it is probably the idea that European culture ought to survive, that the best qualities of it ought to survive along with whatever cultures, in whatever universality. Against the propaganda of terror and the propaganda of luxury, have you a nice simple answer?
    Ezra Pound (1885–1972)