A Psalm of Life

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 A Psalm of Life
"A Psalm of Life" was first
published in the
Knickerbocker Magazine in
October 1838 when
Longfellow was 37 years old.
It also appeared in
Longfellow's first published
collection Voices in the Night. Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, his wife
Frances and their two
sons, circa 1849.
http://www.anes.uab.edu/aneshist/longf
ellow.jpg
 Urgency
The main message of the poem is that we need to
act with some urgency.
This urgency is communicated through a
trochaic rhythm, which gives the poem a
driving, forceful tone. The music of the lines
reinforces the rushed mood:

Life΄ is real΄! Life΄ is earn΄est!

And΄ the grave΄ is not΄ its goal΄;
 The soul does not die
The urgency might seem a little strange, since in
the Christian cosmos Longfellow inhabited, we
humans are said to have an eternity:

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.
 So isn’t it strange that
we’re advised to hurry?

And it gets even stranger…

 The message seems to be:
Hurry up, you’re going to die!

We must act so that we can get “farther

than to-day” and yet

our hearts, though stout and

brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
 Now is the only time we have
“Time is fleeting” we are told. We have neither
the past or the future. We have only the
present:

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !

Let the dead Past bury its dead !
 But why?
If the soul lives forever, and if this world does
not last, why strive?

Why work?

Why not eat, drink and be merry?

Longfellow makes emotional appeals

He uses contrasting images, suggesting that

people who don’t act aren’t really free.
They are “like dumb, driven cattle”
while someone who does act lives the larger and
freer life of “a hero in the strife.”
 Great people acted
He appeals to the image of “great men” who
made their lives “sublime*.”
But he gives no examples of what they actually
accomplished with all their striving.

* “Characterized by nobility; majestic. . . Inspiring awe;

impressive.”
 Except footprints in sand
Even that image is ambiguous. They left their
mark upon the world, but it’s the most
transient of marks.
What is more fleeting than a footprint in the
sand?
 Wait! There’s more!
Someone else might see that footprint,
And it might help him take heart:

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.
 Is this persuasive?
Struggle and strive, because you’re going to die,
but in your struggle you may leave fleeting
footprints that others who are struggling
toward death might see, and this will give
them the courage to continue struggling.
 Until they die too

In some ways, the poem makes no sense.

 Striving in the face of death
Heroic people have made advances against the
real enemies of humanity:
 Disease
 Poverty
 Ignorance
 Fear
 The poem resonates
We can “fight the good fight.” We can not only
accomplish much good, we can also provide an
inspirational model for those who come later.
 Labor and Wait
While we work,

we are also waiting.

Waiting for what?