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

I was just thinking about these lines this morning.  And no one reads them better than Alan Rickman, of course.

For whatsoeuer from one place doth fall,

Is with the tide vnto an other brought:

For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.

- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene -

Ordering My Day

I was thinking about the things I should do today that I might live an ordered life, and this stanza of a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier popped into my head:

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Wow! Poetry!

I am presently flipping through a book I bought in high school entitled, The Book of Love.  I confess that I totally bought this book because of the picture on the cover.

Forgive me, I was 18.

It's a collection of poems, excerpts from books, letters, and essays about...love, of course.  I had forgotten how absolutely lovely a way some people have with words.  I am not genius enough to describe it properly, so I will just let them speak for themselves.  I love this.

Barter by Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell,

All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And children's faces looking up,

Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell

Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit's still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstacy

Give all you have been, or could be.