Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream,
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not ehat they seem.
Life is real, life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal.
Dust thou art, to dust returneth,
Was not spoken of the soul....
In the world's great 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 part 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 life 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 may 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
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A Quarterly Rosicrucian Online Magazine
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