This is one of the first poems I remember my grandmother sharing with me when I was little, so I return to give it another airing now.

| A Psalm of Life |
| 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! | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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! | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| Learn to labour and to wait. |

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