Shallows and Deeps
“The shallows murmur while the deeps are dumb” seems to be an adaptation from Quintus Curtius Rufus: “Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labuntur.” The line is to be found in “The Silent Lover,” usually attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, sometimes entitled “Sir Walter Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth”:
“Passions are likened best to flouds and streames;
The shallow murmur, but the deepe are dumbe:
Soe, when affections yield discourse, it seemes
The bottome is but shallowe whence they come.
They that are riche in wordes, in wordes discover
That they are poore in that which makes a lover.”
The lines—
“Remember, aye the ocean deeps are mute,
The shallows roar.
Worth is the Ocean—Fame is but the bruit
Along the shore”—
are to be found in “Fame,” translated from Schiller, one of the Hymns of the Ages.