This poem speaks to the heart and soul and was written by a young, dejected, grieving young man. Three years earlier his beloved wife died and he felt his life was meaningless. Sitting down to write the message/poem that flowed from his pen was a surge of inspiration.
Finished he set first it aside, thinking it too personal to share as this was the voice from his inner heart. Later he allowed it to be published in October 1838, and it quickly became an inspiration to millions of depressed and forlorn people. This inspirational poem became the most read, memorized, and loved, poem in the WORLD.

The author?
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

A PSALM OF LIFE

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!….
For the soul is dead that merely slumbers
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not it’s 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 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
Foot prints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and ship wrecked 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.