AI-assisted editorial work · source and content reviewed
Poetry · Poem
PASSIONS are liken’d best to floods and streams
Sir Walter RaleighEnglish RenaissancePoem
诗
SOURCE TEXT · English original
PASSIONS are liken’d best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb; So, when affection yields discourse, it seems The bottom is but shallow whence they come. They that are rich in words, in words discover That they are poor in that which makes a lover.
Cultural reading
Reading the poem
A six-line epigram likens passions to water, holding that shallow streams murmur while deep ones are silent, and concludes that those rich in words are poor in what makes a lover.
Language notes
Text and edition
The supplied heading is the poem's opening line; the source provides no separate title, so the first line serves as the identifier here.