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
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"
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"
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"
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
Analysis is carried into everything. Even Deity is subjected to chemical tests.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The Round Table
'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"
Fate loves the fearless.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"The Voyage to Vinland"
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
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
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
Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession, many.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Among my Books, New England Two Centuries Ago
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"
Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to deserve it.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Keats", Literary Essays
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
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
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"
I have hinted that what people are afraid of in democracy is less the thing itself than what they conceive to be its necessary adjuncts and consequences. It is supposed to reduce all mankind to a dead level of mediocrity in character and culture, to vulgarize men's conceptions of life, and therefore their code of morals, manners, and conduct -- to endanger the rights of property and possession. But I believe that the real gravamen of the charges lies in the habit it has of making itself generally disagreeable by asking the Powers that Be at the most inconvenient moment whether they are the powers that ought to be. If the powers that be are in a condition to give a satisfactory answer to this inevitable question, they need feel in no way discomfited by it.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
On Democracy