JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL QUOTES IV

American poet & diplomat (1819-1891)

Ez fer war, I call it murder--
There you hev it plain an' flat;
I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

The Biglow Papers

Tags: war


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"


Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

"The Vision of Sir Launfal"

Tags: joy


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"

Tags: love


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

Tags: genius


Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

The Round Table


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"

Tags: children


Fate loves the fearless.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

"The Voyage to Vinland"

Tags: fate


'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"


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


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

Tags: sincerity


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

Tags: mind


Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

"Keats", Literary Essays

Tags: John Keats


Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession, many.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Among my Books, New England Two Centuries Ago

Tags: possessions


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

Tags: past


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

Tags: beginning


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


Here shall a realm rise
Mighty in manhood;
Justice and Mercy
Here set a stronghold
Safe without spear.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

"The Voyage to Vinland"


With every anguish of our earthly part
The spirit's sight grows clearer.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

"The Death of a Friend's Child"


Poets so their verses write,
Heap them full of life and light,
And then fling them to the rude
Mumbling of the multitude.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

"Eleanor Makes Macaroons"