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A Psalm of Life. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 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!
"A Psalm of Life" was written by the famed New England poet and professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. First published in 1838 in the New York literary magazine The Knickerbocker, the poem was inspired by a conversation between Longfellow and a fellow professor.
A Psalm of Life. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1807 –. 1882. 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.
- Summary
- Analysis of A Psalm of Life
- About Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The poem begins with the speakercontradicting a listener who wants to explain life to him as a matter of number and figures. The rest of the poem is dedicated to the speaker trying to prove this unknown person wrong. He describes the way in which he believes that no matter what death brings, the soul will never be destroyed. Because of this, it is ...
Stanza One
The speaker of ‘A Psalm of Life’begins by asking something of his listener. He is close to the point of begging, desperate that his worst fears (which will be revealed as the poem continues) are not confirmed. He is asking his listener at this point to “not” tell him that “Life is but an empty dream.” He does not want this person to break down the statistics, facts, and “numbers” of life, in an attempt to make sense of it. The speaker does not see, nor does he want to understand the world in...
Stanza Two
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 so...
Stanza Three
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.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine in February of 1807.As a young man he was sent to private school, and alongside his peers was fellow writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Longfellow was a proficient student of languages and after school, traveled, at his own expense, throughout Europe where he refined his language skills. After this t...
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"A Psalm of Life" is a poem written by American writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, often subtitled "What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist". Longfellow wrote the poem not long after the death of his first wife and while thinking about how to make the best of life.
A Psalm of Life Lyrics 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.
With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. A Psalm of Life. “ 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!
