poem

A Psalm of Life — Jul 24, 2026

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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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.

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📖 About this poem

Longfellow wrote this poem as a rebuttal, arguing against the idea that life is empty or that we're merely marking time until the grave. The young man's heart talks back to gloomy scripture, insisting on action over resignation. The music is brisk and confident, trochaic lines that march forward like the very drums he describes, that steady beat becoming part of the meaning. Two images do the heavy lifting: hearts as muffled drums keeping funeral time even while we're alive, and footprints on the sands of time, left for some future shipwrecked stranger to find and take courage from. That second image is the poem's real gift, the thought that your ordinary persistence might quietly help a total stranger someday. It still lands because the anxiety it answers, that nothing we do matters, never goes out of style. The advice is plain and sturdy: stop mourning, start doing, let today outdo yesterday.

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