I.

INTRODUCTION
Summary of A Psalm of Life
“A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow describes the purpose of life, and how one
should handle the sorrow and struggles along the way.

III. DISCUSSION
Characters:
The Psalmist
An older man whom the young man has sought out to help explain the meaning of life. He is
religious, most likely in the conservative Puritan tradition.

The Young Man

He seeks the psalmist out to figure out the meaning of life. He is discontented with the
psalmist's answer and responds with his own views, which center on the need for action and
optimism. He uses religious language to make his case that the soul does not die even though
the body does.

Publication:
“A Psalm of Life” is an inspiring poem written by the American poet Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow. The poem was first published in the October 1838 issue of The Knickerbocker or
New-York Monthly Magazine, a magazine published in the New York City.

A psalm is a religious or sacred song or hymn, in particular any of those contained in the biblical
Book of Psalms and used in Christian and Jewish worship. But here the meaning of “a psalm of
life” is a song of life, where the poet glorifies life and its possibilities. It is an invocation to
mankind to follow the path of righteousness, the right way to live this life. The poem is didactic in
tone.

Analysis
The poem ‘A Psalm of Life’ often takes the subtitle “What the Heart of the Young Man Said to
the Psalmist“. This is very important in suggesting the context of writing this poem. Here, the
speaker (a young man) responds to the Biblical teachings that this human life is not
important and that we are made of dust and eventually return to dust. So, we may take it as a
psalm in response to a psalm.
In the poem, A Psalm of Life, the poet sees life from an optimistic outlook. To him this life is full
of possibilities, as we can achieve higher goals by making the full use of our time and by
working hard, and of course, by keeping faith in the power and potential of life. He does not
have faith in those who hold the pessimistic view of life. Throughout the entire poem, the poet
Longfellow conveys his view of life, instructs the readers to make the most out of this life, and
inspires us to participate in the work and activity of life.

The poem consists of nine stanzas of four lines. The poem is also lyrical in nature. The rhyme
schemefollowed is A B A B, where the last words of the first line and the third line rhyme, and
alternatively the second and the fourth line rhyme in each stanza.
A Psalm of life: Summary and Line-by-Line Analysis
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.
The poem begins with a verb ‘Tell’ in an imperative manner. And the very first sentence strikes
the positive keynote of the poem. It also indicates that the poet is going to give us some
instructions on what this life actually is and how we should take it. The poet asks us not to tell
him in sorrowful verses that life is a hollow and meaningless dream. Here Longfellow slams the
pessimists who sing melancholy songs, write sad poems, or thinks that nothing can be achieved
in this life. According to the poet, a person who spends all his time sleeping is already dead.
Such worthless examples of life often misguide others. And he assures that life is not so shady
or worthless as it looks like, and it has much more potential than we think of.

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.
The second stanza begins with the line, ‘Life is real! Life is earnest!’ This also conveys the
poet’s positive attitude towards life. According to him life is real and serious, not baseless or
useless. So we should not take this life lightly. To him, grave is not the ultimate goal of life; life
does not end with death. He wants to indicate that our works remain in this world even after our
death. He thinks, “Dust thou art, to dust thou returnest” (You are made of dust, and you will go
back to dust after death) is only spoken of the body and it is not applicable to the soul. So the
poet makes it clear that he believes in the existence of the soul after our death.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
The third stanza of A Psalm of Life is about the ideal way of living. The poet suggests that
neither enjoyment, nor sorrow should be our ultimate aim or way of life. He means to say that in
an ideal life there should be both enjoyment and sorrow in a balanced way. But that is not
crucial. The most important thing is to work, and work diligently so that we can always be a
better-learned, better-skilled and better-mannered human being with every passing day. The
poet in The Psalm of Life doesn’t want us to waste even a single day. We should crave for going
forward farther each day in our journey of life.

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.
The fourth stanza of the poem A Psalm of Life is about our responsibilities in this life, about the
work assigned to us. “Art is long, and Time is fleeting” means that the work given to us is vast
and time consuming, but the time is running away fast with every moment. The poet then says
that though our hearts are brave and stout at other times, we fear death and our heart beats
when we realize that Death is certainly coming our way bit by bit. Longfellow compares this
situation of our heart to the beating of the clothed drums at the funeral marches to the grave.
Here he means to say that we should utilize our limited time span to the fullest instead of
wasting it in the thought of death or other such thing.

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!
In the above stanza of A Psalm of Life, the poet compares this world to a vast battlefield where
we, the human beings come temporarily in the camps to fight the battle of our life. So the human
beings are compared with troops. The poet urges us to be a hero in this battle of life, to fight this
out bravely and finally win it. In other words, he wishes us to be successful in life by following
the right way of life. He doesn’t like to see us like the dumb cattle driven by others, with no
particular goal or direction.
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!
In the sixth stanza of the poem A Psalm of life, the poet reminds us of a very popular quote:
“Learn from the past, live in the present, and hope for the future.” But here the poet instructs us
not to trust the future, however pleasant it may seem, because we often get carried away by the
happy dreams about our future and forget to act in the present. He also tells us to forget the
past events, as they are dead, and they should not haunt us anymore and affect our present
action. And what is crucial is to act in the present, ‘in the living Present!’ We have to follow our
heart, and keep faith in the God overhead.

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
In the seventh stanza of the poem, the poet says that the lives of so many great and successful
men remind us that we can also achieve those heights if we wish and strive for that. And if we
can do that, we would be living forever in our works, in the hearts of people. Longfellow
compares this immortality to leaving footprints on the sands of time. In other words, we will not
be living forever here, but we can leave our marks on the infinite flow of time through our good
work. That would inspire later generations to follow our way.

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

In the penultimate stanza of A Psalm of life, the poet continues the same theme of leaving a
‘footprint’ to inspire others to follow. He compares a dejected or wretched person with a
hopeless shipwrecked man sailing over the large sea of life (‘life’s solemn main’). That person
can find the examples set by us, and can gain courage and hope to move forward.
 Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
In the final four lines of A Psalm of Life, the poet Longfellow asks us to be up at once and start
working. However, the poet here urges us not to mind the consequences, or, to make our mind
prepared for any fate. We must carry on, reaching great heights, still not leaving. We must learn
to labour, to work hard, to act wisely, and wait for the rewards patiently.

So, going through this poem, we now realize how inspiring and motivating this poem has been.
The poet conveys his message all over the poem. But I feel, the first two lines, and the very last
line of the poem are enough to give an impression of what this poem is all about: we should not
spend our priceless moments sitting idly and doing nothing, rather we have to work hard
towards reaching our goal and to make the most out of this short life.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "A Psalm of Life" encourages the listener to makes 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
What is the theme of the poem "A Psalm of Life" by H. W. Longfellow?
At a Glance

In "A Psalm of Life," the speaker addresses the psalmist who claims that life is an empty dream.
He implores readers to live in the present, let go of the past, and enjoy life in the awareness that
it is in some ways a slow march to the grave.

 A young man disagrees with a psalmist who alludes to Genesis 3:19: "For dust thou art, and
unto dust shalt thou return." The young man states that this line was spoken only of the human
body and never referred to the soul.

 The speaker exhorts the reader to make life sublime in spite of the knowledge that death will
come for them one day. He tells them to act like heroes in the struggles of day to day life.

 At the end of the poem, the speaker hopes that the reader will take heart in his assertions that
life isn't just an empty dream. He calls upon the reader to strive and achieve in spite of the
promise of death.

Summary of A Psalm of Life

“A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow describes the purpose of life, and how one
should handle the sorrow and struggles along the way.
The poem begins with the speaker contradicting 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 important to do all one can
in life to make one’s situation, and that of others, better.
The speaker comes to the conclusion that he, and the listener, must be prepared at anytime for
death, strife, or any trouble thrown at them. They must face life, and make the best of every
day.

Author:
About Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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, on his
own expense, throughout Europe where he refined his language skills.
After this trip he was married, and began to write language textbooks. He published a collection
of essays that earned him a professorship at Harvard University. Longfellow’s wife died in 1836
from a miscarriage and he turned to his writing as a means of comfort. Soon after this loss he
published the novel, Hyperion. Longfellow would marry again, seven years later. He and his
new with, Frances Appleton, had six children.
Over the next decade and a half, Longfellow produced his best work. These included Voices of
the Night, Hymn to the Night, and later, Psalm of Life. His popularity was growing throughout
Europe and America. In the last years of his life, he enjoyed real fame. This success was
dampened by loss as his second wife died in a house fire. Longfellow died in March of 1882
after developing severe stomach pains. He lived to see himself become one of America’s most
successful writers.

Theme:
Youth
This is a poem for young people searching for meaning in their lives. It is a poem for people not
yet willing to be complacent, passive, or grimly await death. It is for people who are ready to act
and to achieve, to strive and fail and learn from their mistakes. Bleak dogma, conservatism, and
pessimism have no place here; life is more than "an empty dream." Young people must expend
physical and mental energy to accomplish things while they are on this earth, and must seek to
leave a legacy to be proud of. The poem represents the youthful, enthusiastic spirit of the United
States in an era of profound flux and change.

Action
While Longfellow does advocate using the mind, he wants it to be done in an active way. One
should avoid being complacent or passive, or letting oneself devolve into grief or pessimism due
to the fact that life is short. Instead, it is important to train the mind to be positive and the heart
to be stout. There is much to accomplish before death even though it is not easy to navigate the
battlefield of life. Working and thinking and striving bring meaning and allow the soul to endure
beyond the sublunary life.

Religion
This is not an irreligious poem, but Longfellow's young man is expressing his discontent with the
stodgy, bleak biblical platitudes that urge individuals to focus solely on the afterlife. He does not
think that life is empty and that all is worthless because it eventually turns to dust; rather, he
counters the psalmist that the soul is eternal and that what one does during life matters. His is
an optimistic Protestantism, not the rigid Puritanism of the 17th century.
Ephemerality of Life
The young man does not shy away from this obvious fact—life is indeed short and will be over
before we know it. Every beat of our heart takes us closer to the grave, and the present quickly
fades into the past. However, acknowledging that life is ephemeral allows us to make of it what
we want—it allows us to act, to persevere, to take joy in the pleasures of both the everyday and
the heroic. Life is sweet because it is short, Longfellow suggests.
Theme of the poem ‘A Psalm of Life’

What is the main theme or Central idea of the poem ‘A Psalm of Life’ by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow?

The main theme of the poem, as we can see, is to represent an optimistic view of life. According
to the poet, this life is precious. We should not waste it. Rather, we should use this life to do
something great, so that people remember us for ever. We are here to win the battle of life, not
to lose it.

Life is precious. Don’t waste time. Do useful work in each second. Live the present. Be hopeful.
Be great and make yourself an inspiration to upcoming generation.

Moral:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "A Psalm of Life" carries a message of hope and
encouragement; it basically says that although life is so short and so temporary, the fact that we
do eventually die doesn't matter that much, because we can still live life to its fullest.
Message:

A Psalm Of Life Message

What is the message of the poem "A Psalm Of Life" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?

"A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth carries a message of hope and encouragement. It
encourages people to live their lives to the fullest, using the short time we have here on Earth as
a gift. The poem is a message to future generations to find work and action that gives them
purpose and passion.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "A Psalm of Life" carries a message of hope and
encouragement; it basically says that although life is so short and so temporary, the fact that we
do eventually die doesn't matter that much, because we can still live life to its fullest. And, by
finding purposeful work to do, we can help future generations of people.

Although this optimistic, somewhat simplistic message has no shortage of critics--see the
discussion here--people have been long inspired by this poem's message. It helps that it's
delivered in an upbeat, short, easily understandable format; that makes it ideal for readers of
almost any age to enjoy the poem.

Young readers might be quick to label the poem's message as YOLO: "you only live once," so
enjoy yourself. But the speaker's message is slightly different from that. He's not necessarily
 saying that we should indulge ourselves and take risks; he's saying that we should do
meaningful work that fulfills our souls and helps the generations of people that come after us.

Let's check out some of the particular lines that convey the poem's central message:

 "Life is real! Life is earnest!" This is the speaker's way of encouraging readers to approach life
with purpose and passion.
 "Dust thou art, to dust returnest, / Was not spoken of the soul." This means that, yes, when we
die, our bodies physically return to the earth. But that doesn't mean our souls are gone.
 "In the bivouac of Life, / Be not like dumb, driven cattle!" Here, the speaker is saying that
although life is like a temporary encampment, we shouldn't be like silent, passive animals, but
instead we should act with purpose.
 "Let us, then, be up and doing." These words may be the simplest and most motivating of the
whole poem. They're saying that we should be active, that we should do something that
matters.

Literary Elements:

Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View

The Young Man

Form and Meter

ABAB

Metaphors and Similes

Metaphor: Life is spoken of as a battle that we must fight to survive.

Metaphor: A person's accomplishments are "footprints on the sands of time"

Simile: "Still, like muffled drums, are beating / Funeral marches to the grave" compares our
hearts to quiet drums whose rhythms beat onward to death

Alliteration and Assonance

Alliteration: "In the world's broad field of battle, / In the bivouac of Life, / Be not like dumb, driven
cattle!"

Assonance: "Still achieving, still pursuing"

Irony
-It is ironic that a young man has a better sense of the meaning of life rather than an older
teacher. We expect experience to lead to wisdom; but the speaker argues that the teacher's
resignation and refusal of activity has led him to miss life's meaning. Since he thinks life is
worthless, he has not been open to learning from experience, and his greater experience has
not led to insights about life.

Genre
Poetry

Setting
The 19th century
Tone

Hopeful, dynamic, sincere

Protagonist and Antagonist

None

Major Conflict
Whether the young man will be able to convince the psalmist—and himself, and perhaps the
reader—that life is more than just waiting for death, but rather about action and striving and
hope.

Climax
When the young man claims we must "Act,— act in the living present!"

Allusions
-"Dust thou art, to dust returnest" alludes to Genesis 3:19
-The words "psalmist" and "numbers" allude to books of the Bible

Personification
-"Let the dead Past bury its dead!"

Hyperbole
n/a
Onomatopoeia

-"muffled drums"

A Psalm of Life Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

"mournful numbers" (Symbol)
The word "numbers" symbolizes the rigid, authoritarian, and bleak outlook that the books of the
Old Testament espouse. The young man refuses to accept this worldview, preferring to be
hopeful and optimistic. Even beyond the biblical associations numbers themselves are often
viewed as cool, (literally) calculating, and utilitarian –all things the young man does not want to
be.

Action (motif)
Many of the words and phrases used suggest action, which is the prominent theme of the poem.
These include comparing life to battle, the exhortation "Act,— act in the living Present!," the
image of man walking along the sand and leaving footprints and the man sailing across the sea
of life, and the concluding verbs "achieving and pursuing."

Footprints (Symbol)
Footprints symbolize what we leave behind; they are a mark, an indentation. They indicate that
someone has been here before, traversing the path that one is currently traversing. There is
also somewhat of a melancholy aspect to footprints, as they reference the past, absence, and
spirit rather than corporeal presence. The young man sees them mostly as guides, though; he
thinks men can take heart from observing the paths of those gone before them.
Evaluation:

What is the general message of the poem?

What year was the poem written?

Who is the speaker?

The main thing the young man advises is to_____?

References:

https://www.gradesaver.com/a-psalm-of-life/study-guide/character-list
https://englicist.com/notes/a-psalm-of-life-longfellow-summary
https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/can-someone-please-post-theme-poem-psalm-life-by-
h-65599
https://poemanalysis.com/a-psalm-of-life-by-henry-wadsworth-longfellow-poem-analysis/
https://www.gradesaver.com/a-psalm-of-life/study-guide/themes
https://englicist.com/questions/theme-of-the-poem-a-psalm-of-life