Poems by James Russell Lowell

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A Fable For Critics

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,

Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,

For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,

She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;

Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,

And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;

And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,

He somehow or other had never forgiven her;

by James Russell Lowell

My Love

Not as all other women are

Is she that to my soul is dear;

Her glorious fancies come from far,

Beneath the silver evening-star,

And yet her heart is ever near.

Great feelings has she of her own,

Which lesser souls may never know;

God giveth them to her alone,

by James Russell Lowell

The Street

They pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds,

Dim ghosts of men that hover to and fro,

Hugging their bodies round them, like thin shrouds

Wherein their souls were buried long ago:

They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love,

They cast their hope of human-kind away,

With Heaven's clear messages they madly strove,

And conquered,—and their spirits turned to clay.

by James Russell Lowell

After The Burial

YES, faith is a goodly anchor;

When skies are sweet as a psalm,

At the bows it lolls so stalwart,

In bluff, broad-shouldered calm.

And when over breakers to leeward

The tattered surges are hurled,

It may keep our head to the tempest,

With its grip on the base of the world.

by James Russell Lowell

The Washers of the Shroud

Along a riverside, I know not where,

I walked one night in mystery of dream;

A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair,

To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam

Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air.

Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow-mist

Their halos, wavering thistledowns of light;

The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst,

by James Russell Lowell

An Indian-Summer Reverie

What visionary tints the year puts on,

When failing 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!

No more the landscape holds its wealth apart.

by James Russell Lowell

George Washington

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;

Dumb for himself, unless it were to God,

But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent,

Tramping the snow to coral where they trod,

Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content;

by James Russell Lowell

A Revolutionary Hero

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

To the main fight, till faded and grown gray,

The original scene to bolder tints gave way;

Then Joe had heard the foe's scared double-quick

Beat on stove drum with one uncaptured stick,

by James Russell Lowell

The Courtin'

God makes sech nights, all white an' still

Fur 'z you can look or listen,

Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,

All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown

An' peeked in thru' the winder,

An' there sot Huldy all alone,

'Ith no one nigh to hender.

by James Russell Lowell

The Vision Of Sir Launfal

Prelude to Part First

Over his keys the musing organist,

Beginning doubtfully and far away,

First lets his fingers wander as they list,

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:

Then, as the touch of his loved instrument

Gives hopes and fervor, nearer draws his theme,

by James Russell Lowell

Are Ye Truly Free?

Men! whose boast it is that ye

Come of fathers brave and free;

If there breathe on earth a slave,

Are ye truly free and brave?

Are ye not base slaves indeed,

Men unworthy to be freed,

If ye do not feel the chain,

When it works a brother's pain?

by James Russell Lowell

She Came And Went

As a twig trembles, which a bird

Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,

So is my memory thrilled and stirred;—

I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,

The blue dome’s measureless content,

So my soul held that moment’s heaven;—

I only know she came and went.

by James Russell Lowell