One of the best poems ever written

A Psalm of Life

Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream.
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And thing are not as 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 further 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 is the strive!

Trust no future, howe'r pleasant
Let the dead past bury their dead
Act,- act in the living present!
Heart within and God o'er head.

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 mane,
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

The last stanza is my quote for graduation. This has been my favorite poem ever since I first read it many years ago. (I am a poetry geek, so I've read a lot of poetry.) I actually typed it out of memory- that's how many times I have gone over it, and over it again. Found out recently that it was Winston Churchill's favorite poem as well. I knew I liked that guy.

I tend to be to much of a dreamer and not enough of a doer. I hope it helps you out if you are like me and need the motivation to trudge on ahead in life and to keep doing, doing, doing.