A Psalm Of Life,
What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To
The Psalmist.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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 earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art,
to 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 like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the
strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--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 life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall
take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving,
still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.