Every Man Has His Secret Sorrows Which the World Knows Not

7/26/2019 Every Man Has His Secret Sorrows Which the World Knows Not

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“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often

times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

Date of Birth Date of Death

February 27, 1807 March 24, 1882



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose

works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and

Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri'sThe Divine Comedy, and was one of the five Fireside Poets.

Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, which was then a part of

Massachusetts. He studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in

Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at Harvard College.

His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and

Ballads and Other Poems (1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in1854, to focus on his writing, living the remainder of his life in

Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a former Revolutionary War headquarters

of George Washington. His first wife Mary Potter died in 1835, after a

miscarriage. His second wife Frances Appleton died in 1861, after

sustaining burns when her dress caught fire. After her death, Longfellow

had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on translating works

from foreign languages. He died in 1882.

Longfellow wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often

presenting stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular

American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been

criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically

for the masses.



“A Psalm of Life,” by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

, was once very widely read and just as widely admired. Today, however,the poem is often mocked for its allegedly incoherent imagery and its

supposedly empty rhetoric. In the poem, the speaker responds to Biblical

(specifically, Old Testament) teachings that all human life is vain and that

human beings, made of dust, eventually return to dust. The poem’s

subtitle, “What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist,” is

significant. First, the subtitle implies that the speaker of the poem is

willing to question traditional wisdom, or at least some interpretations of

that wisdom. Second, the subtitle identifies the speaker as a person in an

early stage of life, so that his apparent rejoinder to parts of the Bible can

be read (if one so chooses) as a reflection of his youth, particularly given

the passion and enthusiasm with which his views are expressed. In any

case, the poem was widely read, often memorized, and broadly influential,

particularly in the nineteenth century.



In a psalm of life Longfellow says that life is not an empty dream, as other

poets have sung in their sad poems. To some life may seem so but it is notit is real and purposeful. The soul that sleeps is dead, indeed. It is wrong

to think the grave as the goal of life. As is said in the bible. it is the body

that urns to dust. The soul is immortal. The ultimate purpose of life is not

happiness or sorrow. The true purpose of life is to act, not to remain a

passive sufferer. It is only through right action that we can prosper and

progress in life. We must utilize every moment of our life in right action.

According to the poet, life is a short lived affair, after all but art is

limitless. Even our stout hearts with each heartbeat are marching closer

and closer to death; their beats are like those of the muffled drums UN a

funeral march. Thus the heartbeats are very similar to the drumbeats

leading us to the grave. Life, therefore is lied a battlefield. We must put

up a brave fight in this battle of life. We must not be like listless, idle

creatures. We must be a giro in the strife.

Instead of thinking about the future or worrying about the past we must

act meaningfully in the loving present. Widths a pure heart, and faith in

god, we must live every moment of our life in rightful action. We can

make our lives sublime by emulating the qualities of great men. Just as

they have made their lives sublime, we must also learn from them. Only

those coming after us can take inspiration from our lives too. Great menleave footprints on the sands of time to enable others after them to follow

in their footstep.



A psalm is a sacred song or a hymn. H.W. Longfellow has indeed penned

this poem in the tradition of a religious verse with the same spiritualfervor. However it is a very practical psalm, the aim of which is to

enlighten young readers on the best way to lead their life. The poet urges

the readers to not think of life as a waste because of its transience but

make sure to defeat Death by filling it with activities to the fullest. He

asks the readers to discard the past and the future and focus on cultivating

the present and nourishing the soul in order to reach the pinnacle of self-

development. This psalm imparts the moral lessons of courage and

patience as the most important virtues on our path of self-actualization.

He says that there is no substitute to hard work and hence one must labor

endlessly to able to reach that point in life when the threat of Death will

not bother us because our soul which is immortal would be nourished

because of all the work we have done by seizing the day.

“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.”

The style of the poet is very ornate. He does not address the central idea

of the poem in a direct way. Instead he weaves it through a wonderful playof words, engaged in metaphors, allusions and symbols. This increases

the psalm like qualities of the poem. Most biblical pieces have their

meaning hidden behind a layer of poetic devices. The writings style of the

poet is resplendent with spiritual fervor such that it directly touches our

soul and we feel motivated by the encouraging words of the poet. This



poem is the perfect exemplification of how Longfellow was heavily

influenced by European traditions. Because of the way the poet has

formulated and expressed his thoughts in this piece, it can easily be

identified with the British poetry of the Victorian period.

“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.”

It is important to note how the brevity of the poem belies its profundity.

Although the poem is just thirty six lines, it touches upon a number of

themes and imparts many valuable life lessons. It asks us to cultivate the

soul, seize the present, have courage and patience, labor endlessly, get

inspired from the best and inspire the coming generations – for a few to

list. Through just thirty six lines, the poet has managed to inspire the

readers of his time and the many generations of them that followed.

It is interesting to see the poet’s perspective on the temporal nature of life

which the poem brings out. He makes it very clear that life is temporary

and short but he makes us feel all right about it by giving us the perfect

way to invest it with meaning – by beautifying our present and developing

the self and the soul. It would not be an exaggeration to state that this

poem is one of the best invocation pieces penned till date – the continuing popularity of the poem, bears testimony to the same.



A ‘psalm’ is a sacred song, an invocation to mankind to follow the path

of righteousness. A Psalm of Life is a blow to the pessimistic attitude oftaking life lightly. The poet encourages his readers not to waste life the

life is short and is going to end soon. The poem highlights the views of

the poet about how to live life and that there is only one life and therefore,

we should make a good use of it.

A Psalm of Life is about the way of living. The poet tells us that our way

of leaving should be only based on enjoyment or mourning. The aim of

life is to act wisely each day so that we can make a better future.

The lives

of great men remind us that we can make our own lives noble and elevated

that is we can reach great heights. Finally when we die, we can leave

behind us our footprints (noble deeds) for others to follow our path.

A Psalm of Life, the poet asks us to begin at once with courage without

thinking about the consequences of the actions. He asks us to achieve our

aim and learn to work hard and wait patiently for rewards.



The lines “Act, — act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God overhead!" lucidly express the main theme of the

poem.

Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life" belongs to the genre of poetry called

'Carpe Diem' poems. The Latin term coined by Horace in one of his odes

means, "Seize the day and place no trust in tomorrow."

Longfellow makes an earnest appeal to his readers not to worry about the

past or fantasize about the future but to take maximum advantage of the

present to achieve something valuable and worthwhile:

"Trust no Future, however pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act, — act in the living Present!"



"A Psalm of Life" became a popular and oft-quoted poem, such that

Longfellow biographer Charles Calhoun noted it had risen beyond beinga poem and into a cultural artifact. Among its many quoted lines are

"footprints on the sands of time". In 1850, Longfellow recorded in his

journal of his delight upon hearing it quoted by a minister in a sermon,

though he was disappointed when no member of the congregation could

identify the source. Not long after Longfellow's death, biographer Eric S.

Robertson noted, "The 'Psalm of Life,' great poem or not, went straight to

the hearts of the people, and found an echoing shout in their midst. From

the American pulpits, right and left, preachers talked to the people about

it, and it came to be sung as a hymn in churches." The poem was widely

translated into a variety of languages, including Sanskrit. Joseph Massel

translated the poem, as well as others from Longfellow's later collection

Tales of a Wayside Inn, into Hebrew.

Calhoun also notes that "A Psalm of Life" has become one of the mostfrequently memorized and most ridiculed of English poems, with an

ending reflecting "Victorian cheeriness at its worst". Modern critics have

dismissed its "sugar-coated pill" promoting a false sense of security. One

story has it that a man once approached Longfellow and told him that a

worn, hand-written copy of "A Psalm of Life" saved him from suicide.

Nevertheless, Longfellow scholar Robert L. Gale referred to "A Psalm of

Life" as "the most popular poem ever written in English". Edwin

Arlington Robinson, an admirer of Longfellow's, likely was referring tothis poem in his "Ballade by the Fire" with his line, "Be up, my soul”.

Despite Longfellow's dwindling reputation among modern readers and

critics, "A Psalm of Life" remains one of the few of his poems still

anthologized.



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Every Man Has His Secret Sorrows Which the World Knows Not