A Psalm of Life
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!–
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is ernest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, and dust returnest
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
in the bivouac of Life,
Be not dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,–in the living present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er the solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up an doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, Still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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