James Russell Lowell Poems

Let others wonder what fair face
Upon their path shall shine,
And, fancying half, half hoping, trace
Some maiden shape of tenderest grace
...

God! do not let my loved one die,
But rather wait until the time
That I am grown in purity
Enough to enter thy pure clime
...

Ay, pale and silent maiden,
Cold as thou liest there,
Thine was the sunniest nature
That ever drew the air;
...

I go to the ridge in the forest
I haunted in days gone by,
But thou, O Memory, pourest
No magical dropp in mine eye,
...

Old Joe is gone, who saw hot Percy goad
His slow artillery up the Concord road,
A tale which grew in wonder year by year;
As every time he told it, Joe drew near
...

We see but half the causes of our deeds,
Seeking them wholly in the outer life,
And heedless of the encircling spirit-world,
Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us
...

Sometimes come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back,
Over his deep mind muses, as when o'er awe-stricken ocean
Poises a heapt cloud luridly, ripening the gale and the thunder;
Slow rolls onward the verse with a long swell heaving and swinging
...

Thy love thou sendest oft to me,
And still as oft I thrust it back;
Thy messengers I could not see
In those who everything did lack,
...

Soldier and statesman, rarest unison;
High-poised example of great duties done
Simply as breathing, a world's honors worn
As life's indifferent gifts to all men born;
...

The moon shines white and silent
On the mist, which, like a tide
Of some enchanted ocean,
O'er the wide marsh doth glide
...