PSALM OF LIFE.

A PSALM OF LIFE.

A powerful Poetry for Dark times.
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

A photo of H.W. Longfellow courtesy of Google.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and writer who was revered for his lyric poetry, which often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became one of the most popular American poets of his day and had much success overseas.

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 it's goal,

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is not destined end or way,

But to act, that each tomorrow,

Find us further 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,

But not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, however pleasant!

Let the dead past bury it's dead!

Act, - act in the living present!

Hearts 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.

"The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained in sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upwards in the night."

The great poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lived his life (1808 - 1887) as a scholar, writer. His is still remembered for the great poems and writing in his days. His poems and writing has been used in contradicting the ways of lives in every single day.

The above poem was skillfully recorded and speeched by professional artisans.

https://youtu.be/rkli68ljk8l