A Psalm of Life                    

   ---Henry W. 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 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, howe’er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act, — act in the glorious 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

Footsteps on the sands of time;—

Footsteps, 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.

Comment: The poem is renowned for its simple and concise language, sincere and powerful feelings, smooth rhythm and optimistic tone. It opens with a proposition that life isn’t an empty dream, and that our souls may become immortal after death. Then it urges us to live our lives to the full and not just have fun, suffer  passively or wait for death. Although our life on earth is transient, we can make it sublime and eternal. So try, like great men of the past, to  act and leave behind something to be rembered.