A poem from Long ago...

Taking a break from the regular work I do for Misyon, I decided to try stumbleupon again. It's a cool add on of Firefox which brings me to sites that I would not have stumbled upon if I had used the regular search engines. It's fun actually since I don't really know what site would be presented to me. Though the sites given to me are more or less along the perimeters of the categories I had indicated.

Well this cool, overcast August afternoon, I stumbled upon an old poem. Reading it brought back memories of hearing my maternal grandfather reading different works of poetry to us when we were kids, instructing us to roll our r's and to enunciate whenever we attempted to read these works of literature aloud. This old poem is from one of my Lolo's favorite poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I believe its an apt poem for how I see life nowadays....

A Psalm Of Life

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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 labor and to wait.

I found this wonderful poem at READ PRINT, a free online library which holds thousands of books for students, teachers and classic enthusiasts. I thank Lolo Ting for teaching me to love the written word. It has guided me along life's paths, teaching me through the different protagonist and antagonists the dynamics of living. One need not live everything for learning to take place. At times, learning vicariously through another's experience is enough. Through the different characters of the written word, I have as Longfellow aptly put it, "Learn to labor and to wait."