Today’s wisdom is more inspiration, as this poem came to mind often while reading 12 Rules for Life.  I first heard the poem on YouTube, read by Paul Scofield (he had magnificent force for narration),  and have grown to appreciate it more and more as the years wear on. Its author, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was an early American poet who is most known for his poem about the ride of Paul Revere.

What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist

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
Finds 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!
Lethe 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.