- 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.
