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Psalm of Life
By peace | July 30, 2007
A Psalm of Life
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 - 24 March 1882)
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 tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
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, however 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 labour and to wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a commanding figure in the cultural life of nineteenth-century America. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in 1807 in the seaside city of Portland , Maine . He was a traveler, a linguist, and a romantic who identified with the great traditions of European literature and thought. At the same time, he was rooted in American life and history, which charged his imagination with untried themes and made him ambitious for success. His father was of Puritan stock, and a lawyer by profession. He entered school when he was only three years old. His teachers described him in glowing terms: “one of the best boys we have in school”. Later, Longfellow wrote that the writings of Washington Irving influenced him most. His first poem was published when he was 13. At the age of fourteen young Longfellow was sent to Bowdoin College, where he graduated at eighteen. At the age of 22, he became the school’s first professor of modern languages. In 1831, he married Mary Potter, a former classmate, and soon began writing pieces for regional and national magazines. In 1834 he became a professor at Harvard. On a trip to Europe for research, his young wife died. He remarried seven years later and eventually the family included five children. Henry became a world- famous personality by the time of his death in 1882, Massachusetts.
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