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John Townsend Trowbridge Quotes

1827–1916 United States

John Townsend Trowbridge (September 18, 1827 – February 12, 1916) was a popular American author born in Ogden, New York to Windsor Stone Trowbridge and Rebecca Willey. His papers are located at the Houghton Library at Harvard University.

United States
Poets

Random John Townsend Trowbridge quote

16 quotes

Men are polished, through act and speech,
Each by each,
As pebbles are smoothed on the rolling beach.

The tears of the young who go their way, last a day;
But the grief is long of the old who stay.

With years a richer life begins,
The spirit mellows:
Ripe age gives tone to violins,
Wine, and good fellows.

"Wal, I like flyin' well enough,"
He said, "but the' ain't sich a thundern' sight
O' fun in't when ye come to light."

Darius Green and his Flying Machine (1867)

Not in rewards, but in the strength to strive,
The blessing lies.

The rogue is growing a little old;
Five years we've tramped through wind and weather,
And slept out-doors when nights were cold,
And ate and drank—and starved together.

For me the diamond dawns are set
In rings of beauty,
And all my ways are dewy wet
With pleasant duty.

"The birds can fly, an' why can't I?
Must we give in," says he with a grin,
"That the bluebird an' phœbe are smarter 'n we be?"

Darius Green and his Flying Machine (1867)

The birds can fly,
An' why can't I?

A flower more sacred than far-seen success
Perfumes my solitary path; I find
Sweet compensation in my humbleness,
And reap the harvest of a quiet mind.

The all-enclosing freehold of Content.

Our days, our deeds, all we achieve or are,
Lay folded in our infancy; the things
Of good or ill we choose while yet unborn.

I keep some portion of my early gleam;
Brokenly bright, like moonbeams on a river,
It lights my life, a far illusive dream,
Moves as I move, and leads me on forever.

Darius was clearly of the opinion
That the air is also man’s dominion,
And that, with paddle or fin or pinion,
We soon or late
Shall navigate
The azure, as now we sail the sea.

Of nothing comes nothing: springs rise not above
Their source in the far-hidden heart of the mountains:
Whence then have descended the Wisdom and Love
That in man leap to light in intelligent fountains?

If you will observe, it doesn’t take
A man of giant mould to make
A giant shadow on the wall;
And he who in our daily sight
Seems but a figure mean and small,
Outlined in Fame’s illusive light,
May stalk, a silhouette sublime,
Across the canvas of his time.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Townsend Trowbridge (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.