PAUL ROMANO B.

ROYO
MAED-ENGLISH

EDUC. 224

PSALM OF LIFE

Theme:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "A Psalm of Life" encourages the listeners to make
the most of their lives, putting an emphasis on the present instead of the past or the future. The
speaker asserts that life is not meaningless and that the living should make the most of the time
they have before death. Thematically, the poem deals with how meaning is created in one's life.

How does the text create meaning in the literary work?

A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a nine stanza poem that is divided into
sets of four lines, or quatrains. These quatrains each following a rhyming pattern of abab cdcd
efef…and so on, varying as the poem proceeds.

In the first stanza, the speaker of this piece begins by asking something of his listener. He
is close to the point of begging, desperate that his worst fears 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 that way. In the second half
of the quatrain, and for the majority of the poem hereafter, the speaker is attempting to fight back
against the idea that life can be broken down into flat, emotionless, numerics. He states that a “soul
is dead” that is able to think of the world in this way. The person who analyzes the world so
carefully is making a mistake.

In the second stanza, 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 soul. When the words, “Dust thou art, to dust returnest” were spoken, he says,
they were not in reference to “the soul.”

In the third stanza, 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.
 In the fourth stanza, the narrator speaks on what life can seem to be. He understands that
too many “Art is long,” there is much of it to see and not enough time to see it in. This is an
irreconcilable problem and there’s nothing one can do about it. One must be “stout and brave” and
following the beating drums of life to the grave. One does not have to go to their death without
having accomplished anything though.
In the fifth stanza, the speaker expands on the idea that one must make something of one’s
life while it possible to. He compares the days of life to the breadth of a battlefield. It is on this
field one must not act like “driven cattle,” who are pushed around by others but as a “hero” who
is battling his way through “strife.”

The sixth quatrain speaks on how one must regard the past and future. The past must remain
where it is, along with its dead. It should not influence one anymore than is necessary. The “living
Present” is what is important because this is where one’s “Heart” is, along with “God” watching
down from “o’erhead.”

In the seventh stanza, after having addressed all the parts of life the speaker turns to his
own inspirations and whom believes should influence the listener. He reminds all who hear him
that there have been many great men on this planet and that their lives should “remind us” that
“We can” also have “lives sublime.” It is possible, when death finally comes, to leave a legacy that
is worth something.

In the eight stanza, the legacy that the speaker describes is shown as “footprints” that are
forever on the “sands of time.” One’s life will become one of those that others take comfort in. A
“brother,” many years from now, might see those footprints and “take heart again” that he has a
future, even when things seem darkest.

In the final stanza the speaker makes a concluding statement, directed at the listener. He
asks that they “be up,” and prepared for “any fate.” He is ready, at least mentally and emotionally,
to embrace what life will throw at him and he hopes the listener he has been arguing with will
follow along. They will stand up to the world and “learn to labor and wait” for all the things worth
waiting for. Life and death will proceed onwards and the narrator will be there, ready for anything.