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(Just something to tide you over)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807-1882)
A PSALM OF LIFE
WHAT
THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN
SAID TO THE PSALMIST
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.
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