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 returneth
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 driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
That poem in the frame and on this page is
Longfellow's A Psalm of Life
| Trust
no future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead Act-act in the living present! Heart within, God o’erhead! Lives of great men all
remind us Footprints, that perhaps
another Let us
be then up and doing - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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