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!

The sixth quatrain of ‘A Psalm of Life’ speaks on how one must regard the past and future. The past must
remain where it is, along with it’s dead. It should not influence one any more than is necessary. The “living
Present” is what is important because this is where one’s “Heart” is, along with “God” watching down from
“o’erhead.”

Stanza Three
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

The speaker continues his discussion of the purpose or point of life, He does not believe, nor will he even
consider, the possibility that life is made to suffer through. Additionally, he knows that “enjoyment” is not
one’s predetermined destiny. There will be both of these emotions along the way, but the greatest purpose
of life is “to act,” with the intent of furthering oneself and those around one.

The narrator is confident in his beliefs and knows how to live his own life.

Stanza Two
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.

The narrator continues on with what reads as a desperate attempt to contradict what he was afraid of in the
first stanza. He exclaims for any to hear that “Life is real!” And it is “earnest!” He is enthusiastically
supportive of the idea that life is worth living and that it is worth something real. He believes that there is a
reason to be alive other than getting to the grave.

He elaborates on this belief when he describes the ending of life as belonging solely to the body, and not to
the soul. When the words, “Dust thou art, to dust returnest” were spoken, he says, they were not in
reference to “the soul.”