Quote #47

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Everything is happy now, Everything is upward striving; 'Tis as 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: Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season's youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

More from James Russell Lowell

  1. Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it; We are happy now because God wills it.
  2. The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with another's need,- Not that which we give, but what we share,- For the gift without …
  3. And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly he…
  4. 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 th…
  5. For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking: 'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 'Tis only God may …
  6. And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think, And, when he has thought, be his cause strong …
  7. Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.
  8. There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.

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