American poet & diplomat (1819-1891)
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Vision of Sir Launfal"
The pennoned reeds, that, as the west-wind blew,
Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if they knew
What music slept enchanted in each stem,
Till Pan should choose some happy one of them,
And with wise lips enlife it through and through.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Invita Minerva"
Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Rousseau and the Sentimentalists
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May,
Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
To the Dandelion
Love called, and I could not linger,
But sought the forbidden tryst,
As music follows the finger
Of the dreaming lutanist.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Telepathy"
'Tis easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue--
'Tis the natural way of living.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Vision of Sir Launfal"
Children are God's Apostles, day by day
Sent forth to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Death of a Friend's Child"
These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,
Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
In a Copy of Omar Khayyam
Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The Round Table
The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Of a Certain Condescension in Foreigners
Fate loves the fearless.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Voyage to Vinland"
Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Keats", Literary Essays
Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretense of it saps the very foundation of character.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Lectures on English Poets
Things always seem fairer when we look back at them, and it is out of that inaccessible tower of the past that Longing leans and beckons.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A Few Bits of Roman Mosaic
With every anguish of our earthly part
The spirit's sight grows clearer.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Death of a Friend's Child"
In creating, the only hard thing's to begin;
A grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak,
If you've once found the way you've achieved the grand stroke.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Emerson
Ye come and go incessant; we remain
Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past;
Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot,
Of faith so nobly realized as this.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The Cathedral
What visionary tints the year puts on,
When falling leaves falter through motionless air
Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone!
How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare,
As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills
The bowl between me and those distant hills,
And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"An Indian-Summer Reverie"
'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Present Crisis"
Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession, many.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Among my Books, New England Two Centuries Ago