Welcome to
. The following is part of our Gaia’s Notebook series, where we take a look at Mother Earth in all her glory. For the full map of Cosmographia posts, see here.From the mightiest Amazon to the tiniest brook, rivers have carved their way through both our landscapes and our imaginations. They are the arteries of the Earth, carrying life-giving water across continents, nourishing ecosystems, and shaping civilisations.
In our collective consciousness, rivers flow with metaphorical power. They represent the passage of time, the journey of life, and the inexorable march of progress. We speak of “crossing the Rubicon,” of being “up the creek without a paddle,” or of thoughts that “stream” through our minds. Rivers embody both constancy and change – always there, yet never the same from one moment to the next.
Humankind’s relationship with rivers is as complex as the waterways themselves. They have been our lifelines, providing fresh water, fertile soil, and pathways for trade and exploration. The great civilisations of antiquity – Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus, China – all flourished along riverbanks. Yet rivers can also bring destruction, their floods sweeping away lives and livelihoods in moments of terrifying power. And after aeons of their shaping our world, the balance has shifted: today, it is humanity that largely determines the river’s fate, for good or ill.
This duality is reflected in our art and literature. Rivers appear as symbols of renewal and rebirth, of cleansing and baptism. But they also represent barriers to be crossed, challenges to be overcome, or dark waters hiding unknown depths.
Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
1. Starry Night Over the Rhône — Vincent van Gogh (1888)
2. A.A. Milne, from Winnie the Pooh (1926)
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
3. The Four Continents — Peter Paul Rubens (c. 1615) [The women are the personifications of the continents, and the men are their greatest rivers: Nile, Danube, Ganges, and Rio de la Plata]
4. Heraclitus (c. 6th-5th centuries BC)
Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
5. The Oxbow — Thomas Cole (1836)
6. A.A. Milne, from Winnie the Pooh (1926)
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
7. Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea — James Abbot Whistler (1871)
8. Rumi (c. 13th century)
It finds its way into wells and is drawn up to launder petticoats and be boiled for tea. It is sucked into root membranes, travels up cell by cell to the surface, is held in the leaves of watercress that find themselves in the soup bowls and on the cheeseboards of the county’s diners. From teapot or soup dish, it passes into mouths, irrigates complex internal biological networks that are worlds in themselves, before returning eventually to the earth via a chamber pot. Elsewhere the river water clings to the leaves of the willows that droop to touch its surface and then, when the sun comes up, a droplet appears to vanish into the air, where it travels invisibly and might join a cloud, a vast floating lake, until it falls again as rain.
9. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte — Georges Seurat (1884-6)
10. Diane Setterfield, from Once Upon a River (2018)
Alea iacta est. [The die is cast.]
11. Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon — Philip de László (1890)
12. Julius Caesar (attributed), on crossing the Rubicon River (49 BC)
The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
13. The Fighting Temeraire — J.M.W. Turner (1839)
14. T.S. Eliot, from “The Waste Land” (1922)
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
15. Manhood (Voyage of Life) — Thomas Cole (1842)
16. Jorge Luis Borges, from Labyrinths (1962)
I live at the head of the long Yangtze. He lives in its furthest reaches. I think of him, each day, but we never meet. The drink we share is the Yangtze water. When will these waters come to rest, or my regrets finally end? I only hope his heart’s like mine. Surely, we won’t betray our longings!
17. The Yellow River Breaches its Course (Water Album) — Ma Yuan (c. 1160-1225)
18. Li Zhiyi, from “River Song” (c. 11th century)
The July sun blazed in the middle of the sky and the atmosphere was gay and carefree, while in the windless air not a leaf stirred in the poplars and willows lining the banks of the river. In the distance ahead, the conspicuous bulk of Mont-Valérien loomed, rearing the ramparts of its fortifications in the glare of the sun. On the right, the gentle slopes of Louveciennes, following the curve of the river, formed a semi-circle within which could be glimpsed, through the dense and shady greenery of their spacious lawns, the white-painted walls of weekend retreats. On the land adjoining La Grenouillère strollers were sauntering under the gigantic trees which help to make this part of the island one of the most delightful parks imaginable. Busty women with peroxided hair and nipped-in waists could be seen, made up to the nines with blood red lips and black-kohled eyes. Tightly laced into their garish dresses they trailed in all their vulgar glory over the fresh green grass. They were accompanied by men whose fashion-plate accessories, light gloves, patent-leather boots, canes as slender as threads and absurd monocles made them look like complete idiots.
19. La Grenouillère — Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1869)
20. Guy de Maupassant, from Femme Fatale (1881)
I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
21. El Rio de Luz (The River of Light) — Frederic Edwin Church (1877)
22. Langston Hughes, from “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1921)
Isn't it strange how life won't flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?
23. The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne — Alfred Sisley (1872)
24. Anita Desai, from Clear Light of the Day (1980)
You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.
25. Snow on Ayase River — Shōtei Takahashi (1915)
26. Ernest Hemingway, from A Moveable Feast (1964)
How beautiful the sky looked, how blue and calm and deep! How brilliant and majestic was the setting sun! How tenderly shone the distant waters of the Danube! And fairer still were the purpling mountains stretching far away beyond the river, the convent, the mysterious gorges, the pine forests veiled in mist to their summits… There all was peace and happiness. ‘I should wish for nothing, wish for nothing, for nothing in the world, if only I were there', thought Rostov. ‘In myself alone and in that sunshine there is so much happiness…’
27. Hudson River Landscape — Abigail Tyler Oakes (1852)
28. Leo Tolstoy, from War and Peace (1869)
It was late, late in the evening, The lovers they were gone; The clocks had ceased their chiming, And the deep river ran on.
29. A French River Landscape — Frits Thaulow (c. late 19th century)
30. W.H. Auden, from “As I Walked Out One Evening” (1937)
They stood on the far shore of a river and called to him. Tattered gods slouching in their rags across the waste. Trekking the dried floor of a mineral sea where it lay cracked and broken like a fallen plate. Paths of feral fire in the coagulate sands. The figures faded in the distance. He woke and lay in the dark.
31. Volga Boatmen — Ilya Repin (1870-3)
32. Cormac McCarthy, from The Road (2006)
The yellow leaves begin to fade And flutter from the Temple elms, And at my feet the pale green Thames Lies like a rod of rippled jade.
33. Westminster Bridge, with the Lord Mayor's Procession on the Thames — Canaletto (1747)
34. Oscar Wilde, from “Symphony in Yellow” (1889)
Whoever can't see the whole in every part plays at blind man's bluff. A wise man tastes the entire Tigris in every sip.
35. Eastside Mill along the River Gein by Moonlight — Piet Mondrian (c. 1903)
36. Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (c. 19th century)
I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever.
37. River Ostyor in Mogilev Oblast — Nikolay Atryganev (1885)
38. Kazuo Ishiguro, from Never Let Me Go (2005)
We cannot see Beauty till we let go our hold of it. It was Buddha who conquered the world, not Alexander - this is untrue when stated in dry prose - oh when shall we be able to sing it? When shall all these most intimate truths of the universe overflow the pages of printed books and leap out in a sacred stream like the Ganges from the Gangotrie?
39. The Banks of the Ganges — William Daniell (c. 1825)
40. Rabindranath Tagore (c. 20th century)
My River runs to thee. Blue sea, wilt thou welcome me? My river awaits reply. Oh! Sea, look graciously. I'll fetch thee brooks From spotted nooks. Say, sea, Take me!
41. Wivenhoe Park, Essex — John Constable (1816)
42. Emily Dickinson, from “My River runs to thee” (c. 1862)
I stood on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, And the moon rose o'er the city, Behind the dark church-tower. I saw her bright reflection In the waters under me, Like a golden goblet falling And sinking into the sea.
43. River Scene on the Banks of the Tigris — Abdul Qadir al-Rassam (1920)
44. Henry Wandsworth Longfellow, from “The Bridge” (1845)
The sun was slanting toward the western horizon, the endless expanse of the realm of shadows. The flickerings of its fading rays shook with the shiver of Death upon the surface of the sacred Nile.
45. A View of Cairo from the Nile — Ivan Aivazovsky (1872)
46. Naguib Mahfouz, from Voices from the Other World (2002)
Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves. So, in the kapia, between the skies, the river and the hills, generation after generation learnt not to mourn overmuch what the troubled waters had borne away. They entered there into the unconscious philosophy of the town; that life was an incomprehensible marvel, since it was incessantly wasted and spent, yet none the less it lasted and endured ‘like the bridge on the Drina.’
47. The Stone Bridge — Rembrandt (c. 1638)
48. Ivo Andrić, from The Bridge on the Drina (1945)
What can I say to convince you the Houses of Parliament dissolve night after night to become the fluid dream of the Thames?
We do live on the planet Water. Spectacular selection that brings peace of mind and joy to the soul! Thanks for sharing it.
A rapture to read, especially for a river lover like me. Last summer while visiting St Louis we spent a morning at the Lewis and Clark Boat House and museum. This renewed my interest in reading again – in more detail – about their expedition. In the broader expanse of river history that you paint so enjoyably in this post, we all should be more intrigued so we can say with Hughes, “I’ve known rivers…”