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- 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!
www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2697.Henry_Wadsworth_LongfellowHenry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes (Author of The Song of ...
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‘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.
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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!
Sep 7, 2024 · Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the most popular American poet in the 19th century. His notable works included The Song of Hiawatha and ‘Paul Revere’s Ride.’. Longfellow’s poems typically featured sweetness, simplicity, and a romantic vision shaded by melancholy. Learn more about his life and career.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- “A Psalm of Life” (1839) 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,
- “The Day is Done” (1845) The day is done, and the darkness. __Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward. __From an eagle in his flight.
- “The Children’s Hour” (1863) Between the dark and the daylight, __When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day’s occupations, __That is known as the Children’s Hour.
- “The Reapers and the Flowers” (1839) There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, __And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, __And the flowers that grow between.
"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.
Longfellow wrote "A Psalm of Life" at the beginning of a period in which he showed an interest in the Judaic, particularly strong in the 1840s and 1850s. More specifically, Longfellow looked at the American versions or American responses to Jewish stories.
In the atmosphere of disillusionment attending world wars—and especially in Herbert S. Gorman’s disparaging 1926 biography—Longfellow became an easy scapegoat for everything judged wrong with Puritan, Victorian, Brahmin, genteel, sentimental, and racist evasions of the grim realities of life.
