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.
Longfellow gives a great depiction of life and death through his intense phrases in, “A Psalm of Life”. It reveals the wonderful side of life whether you are living it or striving for it. This poem can be used as inspration to live life to the fullest and to not to let life pass you by.
The poem is alright with me because I believe in working hard and not sitting around and doing nothing and to be your self and work hard.
I think this poem is very good and it relates to me by, “Art is long and time is fleeting,” This means life is long but life goes by quickly.
A Psalm of Life
“Trust no future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead past bury it’s dead!” We read this in English class at Washington High School in Los Angeles. I actually think it’s an ok poem. To me the poems is saying how you should always look foward to the future but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a good one. But you shouldn’t spend you life in the past or else it’ll pass you by,instead live it int he present.
“A Psalm of Life” is a very interesting poem.It makes you think how life is, and how you can live your life without giving up on yourself.I think that life has a meaning for living and this poem is a reason to help others who are having problems and think there is no reason for living. “Not enjoyment, and sorrow, Is our destined end or, way; But to act that each to-morrow Finds us father than to-day.” Is the line that inspired me the most. It is talking about how life has sad and happy times but you just have to think about today.
In the poem “A Psalm Of Life” it says, “trust no future how’er pleasant!/Let the past bury its dead!” This means live for the present. I can relate to this very well beacause a lot of bad things have happened to me, but I let the past live in the past and I live for the present and the future.
In this poem “A Psalm in Life” I found this quote to be quite moving: “Life is long but time is moving quickly.” It means that life is long but it passes by very quickly and by the time you decide to do anything about it, its almost over.
In the poem “A Psalm of Life,” it states, “Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal”… It means that life is precious and it is never to be wasted. You have to live everyday like its the last day and you can’t waste your life away. I found that interesting because that’s been my way since I can remember. That’s what I thrive on. I don’t waste time on foolishness neither do I allow others to waste my time. That’s why I found this poem interesting.
I thought this poem is good, great, awsome,ect. I like how Mr. Longfellow thinks or used to think . How he tells us that life is meaningless if we don’t do anything. I think people should read it and read it to their younger kids so that they can think about it.The quote I Iike best is “Trust no future,how e,er pleasant! Let the dead past burry its dead! Act-act in the living present! Heart within,and God o’erhead!” I like it because it’s telling us to worry about today and not about past.To just think of what are your goals for today and not tommorrow, and thats how I think. That’s what I tell my sister.
In the poem it said that, “Art is long and time is fleeting.” I think this means that life is long and life goes quickly. What this means in my life is that I remember when I road my first bike when I was about 4 or 5 years old . It seemed like if it was just yesterday. In the poem it said that time goes fast.
I really liked this poem because it talks about how you should live your life to the fullest. I belive that you should work hard so you can do or get everything you want to. I liked when he said that you should live your life in the present and forget about the past. I think that everybody should live everyday like it was there last.
This poem actually makes a lot of sense. It describes the way we should all be living. The poem tells you to live in the moment and not the past. That’s actually good advice because you should never worry about something you did in the past and just live your life in the moment. It’s better than torturing yourself about a mistake you made in the past.
Like all of my classmates, I read A Psalm of Life. “Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime.” This reminds me of Francisco “Pancho” Villa, a great man, especially for Mexico, and like the majority messages from the poem, he lived his life to the fullest because he knew that life is not meaningless. Francisco “Pancho” Villa is some one I look up to, and I hope that one day some one will look up to me the way I look up to him.
We had this poem for studying as a part of our curriculum in India. Since then it has been my favorite. Have quoted few verses of these off and on.. Is a wonderful poem to read and think during one of the poignant moments. Gave back my mental peace.. Somehow relives the zest for life in me..Will always be my favorite..specially the footprints verse.
Four poetic works, which I memorized as guide and inspiration to happy, creative living.
–The Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-16), King James Version I rewrote in poetic spacing. The punch line is verse
16, “Let your light shine before men . . .”
–“If” by Rudyard Kipling.
–“The Chambered Nautilus” by Oliver Wendel Holmes.
–“A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
I don’t know any other short poetic works that inspire me more to live the GOOD LIFE.
An 80 yr. old vet of WW II
this is the poem which can change the way we live,
the lines which leave an ever ending impression on us ,
is “trust no future however plesant,
——————————-
——————————
———god over head.
want very one to follow that
Like many of my contemporaries who attended high school in the 40’s and 50’s, I was required to memorize many poems. A Psalm of Life was one of those. At the time, I did not fuly appreciate the poem – what teen age boy did – but in later years came to thoroghly enjoy reciting it to anyone who might be interested in hearing it. It is my hope that we all can leave “footprints on the sands of Time” that will in some small way, help another human being find his/her way through life.
I think this poem is very great and interesting to read but this poem was very religious so it isn’t more wellknown like Alex says becouse only some people knows about bible and interested about bible.But i just can say that this poem is very interested.
I ran across this poem many years (20?) ago and it immediately struck me as a description of exactly how I felt and how I still do feel about life, death and how we ought to approach them.
It seems to me that we ought to live our lives to the best of our ability, enjoying everything, experiencing all , hurt nobody, help anybody we can whenever we can and wherever we can. And be very, very grateful each morning that we wake up and are given the privelege to enjoy another day on this beautiful planet. I sincerely hope that we(6 billion of us?!)haven’t wrecked the planet beyond it’s ability to heal.
Think about it…
Al
This poem is great, I really enjoy Longfellow’s poetry. It has a really good message as well; it’s too bad this poem isn’t more well known.