James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowellwas an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets. These poets usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth22 February 1819
CountryUnited States of America
love love-life bless
Love lives on, and hath a power to bless when they who loved are hidden in the grave.
dream giving imagination
Imagination, where it is truly creative, is a faculty, and not a quality; it looks before and after, it gives the form that makes all the parts work together harmoniously toward a given end, its seat is in the higher reason, and it is efficient only as a servant of the will. Imagination, as it is too often misunderstood, is mere fantasy, the image-making power, common to all who have the gift of dreams.
kings men soul
What men call luck Is the prerogative of valiant souls, The fealty life pays its rightful kings.
god console lifts
Be He nowhere else, God is in all that liberates and lifts, in all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles.
beautiful fashion art
Fashion being the art of those who must purchase notice at some cheaper rate than that of being beautiful, loves to do rash and extravagant things. She must be forever new, or she becomes insipid.
weather gold lace
God's livery is a very plain one; but its wearers have good reason to be content. If it have not so much gold-lace about it as Satan's, it keeps out foul weather better, and is besides a great deal cheaper.
men dust wind
It is not without reason that fame is awarded only after death. The cloud-dust of notoriety which follows and envelops the men who drive with the wind bewilders contemporary judgment.
rust literature riches
The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot, be alienated.
light tradition crime
Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime.
good-life achievement feelings
While tenderness of feeling and susceptibility to generous emotions are accidents of temperament, goodness is an achievement of the will and a quality of the life.
archer fate white
Who is it needs such flawless shafts as fate? What archer of his arrows is so choice, or hits the white so surely?
habit reason curious
It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reasoning is.
long desire moments
The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment.
hands yesterday humanity
For Humanity sweeps onward: where today the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.