"A Psalm..."

[Zam-Zam]

A Psalm of Life

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 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 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.


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

[Addy]

Learn to labor and to wait.

That last line confuses me... wait for what, death?

 

[Zam-Zam]

FWIW Per "Poem Analysis":


In the final stanza, the speaker makes a concluding statement, directed at the listener. He asks that they “be up,” and prepared for “any fate.” He is ready, at least mentally and emotionally, to embrace what life will throw at him and he hopes the listener he has been arguing with will follow along. They will stand up to the world and “learn to labor and wait” for all the things worth waiting for. Life and death will proceed onwards and the narrator will be there, ready for anything.


Voices Of The Night: A Psalm Of Life | Poem Analysis


I'm not sure how helpful this is, but there it is anyway.

 

[Bernard_Fokke]

A Psalm of Life

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 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 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.


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


View attachment 64791

The bard of the North
Robert Service

The Men That Don't Fit In
BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in

Robert W. Service | Poetry Foundation

Born in Lancashire, England to a bank cashier and an heiress, poet Robert William Service moved to Scotland at the age of five, living with his grandfather and three aunts until his parents moved to Glasgow four years later and the family reunited. He wrote his first poem on his sixth birthday, and…

www.poetryfoundation.org

 

[Addy]

FWIW Per "Poem Analysis":


In the final stanza, the speaker makes a concluding statement, directed at the listener. He asks that they “be up,” and prepared for “any fate.” He is ready, at least mentally and emotionally, to embrace what life will throw at him and he hopes the listener he has been arguing with will follow along. They will stand up to the world and “learn to labor and wait” for all the things worth waiting for. Life and death will proceed onwards and the narrator will be there, ready for anything.


Voices Of The Night: A Psalm Of Life | Poem Analysis


I'm not sure how helpful this is, but there it is anyway.

Thanks, Zam.
I appreciate your interpretation. It just seems there's an instance of seize the moment in the poem and then further down at the ending it says, wait.
Your link helped clarify it somewhat though.