Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Psalm of Life

<small>WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST</small>
{{sc|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;

Genesis inversion

Flips Genesis 3:19 ('dust thou art, to dust returnest'). Longfellow argues the curse applies only to the body, not the soul—a theological move that justifies his optimism.

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,

Ars longa, vita brevis

From Hippocrates via Seneca: 'Art is long, life is short.' Longfellow uses it to argue for urgency—your heartbeat is literally a countdown to death.

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,

Military metaphor

**Bivouac** = temporary military camp. Life is a battlefield where you're just camping between fights. This was written in 1838, before the Civil War made such metaphors grimmer.

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!

Matthew 8:22 reference

Jesus said 'Let the dead bury their dead' when a disciple wanted to delay following him. Longfellow borrows the urgency: don't wait, act now.

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 paradox

The metaphor contradicts itself—footprints in sand wash away. Longfellow seems to know this (note 'perhaps'), but needs the image anyway.

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.
{{anchor|Let us, then, be up and doing}}Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Young Man vs. The Psalmist

The subtitle frames this as a debate: youth arguing against age. The Psalmist likely refers to Psalm 90, attributed to Moses, which calls life 'threescore years and ten' and says 'we spend our years as a tale that is told.' That psalm is pessimistic—life is brief, God is eternal, we're dust. Longfellow's speaker rejects this.

The poem was written in 1838 when Longfellow was 31, recently widowed, and fighting depression. His wife Mary had died in 1835 after a miscarriage. The 'young man' voice is partly self-persuasion—arguing himself out of despair by sheer force of rhetoric.

Mournful numbers means both 'sad verses' and 'sad meter'—Longfellow rejects pessimistic poetry in its form and content. He'll counter with his own meter: trochaic tetrameter, the rhythm of marching. The poem practices what it preaches—it's literally built for forward motion.

What 'Sublime' Meant in 1838

When Longfellow writes 'We can make our lives sublime,' he's using sublime in its 19th-century sense: morally elevated, awe-inspiring, noble. Not 'pretty good'—transcendent. This is Romantic-era vocabulary, borrowed from Edmund Burke and Kant.

The 'footprints' image became the poem's most famous line, quoted endlessly in Victorian mourning culture. But notice the metaphor fails on purpose: footprints in sand don't last. Longfellow seems aware ('perhaps another... shall take heart'), but he needs the visual. The point isn't permanence—it's influence. You won't last, but your example might save someone.

The final stanza's 'Learn to labor and to wait' is the poem's actual advice, often ignored by readers who prefer the earlier slogans. Action isn't enough—you also need patience. It's less quotable than 'Act in the living Present!' but more honest about how change actually works.