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.
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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.
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Not
enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is out destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
-Find us farther than
to-day.
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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.
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---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! --
--
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---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!
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Lives
of great men all remind us
-----We can make our lives
sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
-----Footprints on the sands
of time;
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Footprints,
that perhaps another,
---Sailing o'er lilfe's
solemn main,
-- A forlorn and
shipwrecked brother,
- Seeing, shall take
heart again,
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- Let us, then, be up and
doing, -----
With a heart for any fate; ----
Still achieving, still
pursuing, ---
Learn to labor and to
wait.-
-
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