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 the goal,
„Dust thou art, to dust returnest“
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end and way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us further than today.

Art is long, and time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though strong and brave,
Still, like muffeld drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like the dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasend!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act – act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead.

Lives of great men all reminds us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints, in the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solem main-
A farlon and shipwrecked brother-
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing
with a heart far any fate;
Still achiving, still pursuing
Learn to labor and to wait.

.

by Henry W. Longfellow

taken from: „A Time to gather“,
edited by: Mervin J. Baer & Marvin Eichner
copyright 1989 by „Rod and Staf publishers Inc.“
Crockelt, Kentucky 41413

Titelbild von pexels.com, Author: Mike