Quote#Truth
The child is not mine as the first was
Quote byJames Russell Lowell · 1819–1891
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Changeling, st. 7 (1879).
English (original)
The child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast; Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair.
— James Russell Lowell
More from James Russell Lowell
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers, is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
From lower to the higher next, Not to the top, is Nature’s text; And embryo Good, to reach full stature, Absorbs the Evil in its nature.
They came three thousand miles, and died, To keep the Past upon its throne; Unheard, beyond the ocean tide, Their English mother made her moan.
It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested.
When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin's lamp.