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!
   And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
   Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
   Finds us farther than to-day.

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.

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!

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!

Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
   Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
   With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
   Learn to labor and to wait.
 

And an old priest said, Speak to us of Religion.
     And he said:
     Have I spoken this day of aught else?
     Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
     And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hand hew the stone or tend the loom?
     Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
     Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself’ This for my soul, and this other for my body?”
     All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
     He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.
     The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
     And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.
     The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
     And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

     Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
     Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
     Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,
     The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. 
     For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.
     And take with you all men:
     For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

     And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
     Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
     And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
      You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.