Longfellow’s Invitation – To Live

As spring comes in earnest, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life” leaps from the page. The poem was written in 1838, but its meaning is special for this time.

The year Longfellow wrote the poem was a long one, with the loss of his first wife and long conversations with friends on the ultimate meaning of life. The poem is a kind of rebirth, a being set free, by his resolve to be free.

In a time when we are often rattled, when the world seems filled with more uncertainty that certainty, this real but uplifting reminder to have courage not once in a while, not when times are easy or good, but on all days … is fresh.

Longfellow himself would live another 45 productive years. Here it is:

“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.”

So, as Spring turns into a time of warmth, as the cold of winter recedes, and as worries that drag at us in the cold and dark of winter lift, hope you like I are grateful for Longfellow’s gift.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!