AN INSPIRATIONAL POEM

 

AN INSPIRATIONAL POEM

            To inspire a person is to encourage, animate, elevate, exalt, cheer. hearten, or invigorate him.

            A psalm is a hymn, sacred song, song of praise, religious song, or anthem.

            The title of the poem which is given below is ‘A PSALM OF LIFE.’ It  was written by the American poet and educator HENRY Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

           

            The principal message of the poem is that it is unwise to treat life as an empty dream. Life is, on the contrary, a  hard reality. It has to be lived actively and fruitfully. There should be no pessimism about the purpose of life. To fill it  with enthusiasm and the intention to make it lofty, grand, elevated, dignified, glorious, magnificent, or superb, one should study the biographies of great men which remind the readers that they can make their lives sublime, and departing leave behind them footprints on the sands of time. These footprints dissolve pessimism, low spirits, and a feeling of inability.

 

            H. W. Longfellow tells the readers:

                        Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

                          Is our destined end or way:

                          But to act, that each tomorrow

                          Finds us farther than today.

 

            The text of the complete poem follows:

               

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 labour and to wait.

                                    *********

G.R.Kanwal

13 September 2026