---
title: ▍A Psalm of Life
created: 2026-02-20T20:05:44
modified: 2026-02-20T20:06:06
category: Poem
author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
url: https://www.google.com/search?q=A+Psalm+of+Life+Henry+Wadsworth+Longfellow
---

> Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
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> Life is but an empty dream!
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> For the soul is dead that slumbers,
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> And things are not what they seem.
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> Life is real! Life is earnest!
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> And the grave is not its goal;
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> Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
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> Was not spoken of the soul.
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> Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
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> Is our destined end or way;
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> But to act, that each to-morrow
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> Find us farther than to-day.
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> Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
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> And our hearts, though stout and brave,
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> Still, like muffled drums, are beating
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> Funeral marches to the grave.
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> In the world’s broad field of battle,
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> In the bivouac of Life,
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> Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
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> Be a hero in the strife!
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> Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
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> Let the dead Past bury its dead!
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> Act,— act in the living Present!
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> Heart within, and God o’erhead!
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> Lives of great men all remind us
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> We can make our lives sublime,
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> And, departing, leave behind us
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> Footprints on the sands of time;
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> Footprints, that perhaps another,
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> Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
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> A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
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> Seeing, shall take heart again.
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> Let us, then, be up and doing,
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> With a heart for any fate;
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> Still achieving, still pursuing,
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> Learn to labor and to wait.