A Poem for the New Year

It is another new year, maybe time for resolutions and new beginnings... Here are a few paragraphs from a poem that has struck me and I wish to remember it as we build Grounded !

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A Psalm of Life

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

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.   

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

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