Poem for To-day

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXX, Issue 20153, 6 July 1935, Page 21

Poem for To-day

“ A PSALM OF LIFE ” Accepted as the best-known and best-loved of American poets, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, on his return from a European tour, published his first volume of original Verse under the title “Voices of the Night,” which includes “A Psalm of Life” (what the heart of the young man said to the psalmist). This was In 1839, and the poems created a favourable impression, which was deepened on the publication In 1841 of “Ballads” and other Poems, containing such moving pieces as “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” ‘The Village Blacksmith," and “Excelsior.” From that moment Longfellow's reputation as a poet was established—he became the singer whose charm and simplicity not only appealed to his own countrymen, but to English-speaking men and women the world over. In 1847, Longfellow produced what many regard as the greatest of all his works, the one that will hand on his name to posterity—“ Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie.” Singularly beautiful, too, are “The Golden Legend,” and the

“Song of Hiawatha,” ■which became Immensely popular, the poet describing the latter poem as “sweet and wholesome as maize.” And if the poem lacks veracity as an account of savage life, It nevertheless overflows with the beauty of the author’s own nature, and is typical, as is “A Psalm of Life,” of those elements in his poetry which have endeared his name to the English-speaking world.

Tell me not. in mournful numbers, Lift is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not v;hat they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returncst, 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 usi 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 labour and to wait. • — Longfellow.

(Published by request as the poem is regarded as an inspiring one, and obviously written to encourage the downhearted and distressed.)