Life is Earnest

Painting by Jacob van Strij (1756–1815)


I was recently reminded of a poem that I first heard from my father. It's A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I can see my dad with my mind's eye, smiling as he often did, telling me not to live life like dumb driven cattle but to be a hero in the strife of life. I don't think he particularly meant doing heroic things, but rather living life purposefully.

As I read the poem anew, I am impressed by Longfellow's reminder to live life fully in the present. Our past shapes us, our future directs us, but we need to live earnestly in the here and now, with a sense of purpose that is beyond ourselves.

Here is the poem:

A PSALM OF LIFE
by 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.