A Psalm of Life Poem Summary and Analysis

1     What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

2Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

3   Life is but an empty dream!

4For the soul is dead that slumbers,

5   And things are not what they seem.

6Life is real! Life is earnest!

7   And the grave is not its goal;

8Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

9   Was not spoken of the soul.

10Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

11   Is our destined end or way;

12But to act, that each to-morrow

13   Find us farther than to-day.

14Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

15   And our hearts, though stout and brave,

16Still, like muffled drums, are beating

17   Funeral marches to the grave.

18In the world’s broad field of battle,

19   In the bivouac of Life,

20Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

21   Be a hero in the strife!

22Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

23   Let the dead Past bury its dead!

24Act,— act in the living Present!

25   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

26Lives of great men all remind us

27   We can make our lives sublime,

28And, departing, leave behind us

29   Footprints on the sands of time;

30Footprints, that perhaps another,

31   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

32A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

33   Seeing, shall take heart again.

34Let us, then, be up and doing,

35   With a heart for any fate;

36Still achieving, still pursuing,

37   Learn to labor and to wait.