A little poetry for your Wednesday

I've read part of this poem before in Jan Karon's Mitford books but read the entirety for the first time this morning.  It encouraged me to be up and doing today.  Without further ado, here is A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  I highlighted my favorite lines and tried to refrain from highlighting the entire thing.


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 are, to dust thou returnest,
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 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 sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solenm 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. 


I love that.  And I needed the encouragement on this gray and cloudy morning to be still achieving, still pursuing, and a hero in the strife.  I began the day groggily, but now I'm feeling a bit more energetic and inspired to be creative in the gift of this new day, the living Present.

starting a new day in Derbyshire