Let Us, Then, Be Up and Doing

This poem by Longfellow really speaks to me. Living a full life is about doing — acting in the present moment. The past is gone. The future can't be predicted. Let your actions (now) leave footprints on the sands of time for others to follow.

Enjoy

-Stuart

A Psalm of Life

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

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.

1 comment

Erin Brooks

Aug 5, 2021

John Mayer has a song lyric that "I am bigger than my body gives me credit for". I love that. I love that we are so much more than our bodies and that our souls can travel at will to desired places no matter our bodily limitations. I also love that the best place to be is in the present.