[Rowan]

My most favourite poem

``````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 are, 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 labour and to wait.


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow