dots-menu
×

Home  »  Parnassus  »  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.

Life

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

(See full text.)

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.

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.