A Psalm Of Life
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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 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.
- taken from the writings of:
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- By,
