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                                    | An
      encouraging journey. . . . lessons
      on perspective.
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                      | A Psalm of LifeHenry 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!
 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
 Find 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.
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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!
 
 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.
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                                    | I am in
        love with this world. . . I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests,
 sailed its waters, crossed its deserts,
 felt the sting of its frosts,
 the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains,
 the fury of its winds,
 and always have beauty and joy
 waited upon my goings and comings.
 
 John Burroughs
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