The Washington herald., 1910-11-13

y -
No, 2.
THE PSALM OF LIFE"
HENRY w. 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, 10 dust rsturnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment. and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But 10 act that each tomorrow,
Finds us farther than to-day.
Art is long. and time is fleeting,
And our hearts. though stout and
brave,
Still. like mufied drums, are beating
Funeral marches 10 the grave.
IN the worlds broad field OF battle,
In the bivouac OF life.
Be not ike 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 Ger lifes solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreeked brother.
Seeing. shall take heart again.
Let as. then. be up and doing,
with a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn 10 labor and to wait.
OF all the poems OF Henry W
LongfelIow, the most familiar is his
Psalm OF Life" The great Ameri-
can poet notes that the idea OF these
verses is what the heart of the
young man said 10 the psalmist.
They are among the earliest that he
wrote.
After a certain degree CT fame and
fortune had come to Longfellow. he
took up his residence at the Craigie
House. with which his name and ac-
cOmplishments are so closely at
tached. In the upper chamber OF
this house he fitted himself a little
study, where he could ind secluslon,
and il was here. between the years
1897 and 1915. that he composed all
OF his poems, seated at a little table
between the eastern and southern
& windows.
The hrst poem written in this
room must have been the one en-
titled Flowers
"Spake full well in language
quaint and olden.
One who dwelleth by the Eastern
Rhine.
When he called the flowers. so blue
and golden.
Stars that in earth's armament do
shine"
The second poem written in this
room was his Psalm of Life" Ii
was penned one bright summer
morning, hastily. upon the blank
portions OF a note invitation. and is
dated July &c. 1888. These two poems
mark an epoch in the writer's life.
They were widely separated from
what had gone before. not only by
cOnSlOETaple lutfTNdi OF tiNlts buN ny
intellectual space. by the change,
and deeping of thought. which is
spoken of in his prelude, afterward
published with them. in the Voices
of the Night"
The slight "reminiscences of Goethe
and Schiller. in two Of the lines Of
the Psalm" show how closely he
had become allied with the German
influence. Indeed, it is remembered
that before its publication. Mr..
Longfellow read the poem 10 his
class at the close OF lecture on
b Goethe
"The Psalm of Life" was first
published in the "Knickerbocker
Magazine" OF October, 1888. and at
once attracted attention. Here was
evidently a new strain IN American
poetry. II has perhaps to-day
grown too familiar for us 10 read It
as IL was first read. But If the ideas
have become commonplace, it has
(Copyright 1870 q"