Don’t Tell Me Life is an Empty Dream

Do not tell me in a sorrowful tone that life is just an empty dream. For the soul is truly dead that sleeps away, and things are never quite what they seem. Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its final goal. "Dust thou art, to dust returnest" was never meant for the soul.

It is not all about joy or sorrow; both are destined to fade away. Life is about action, so that each tomorrow finds us further than today. Art is eternal, but time is fleeting, and our hearts, brave and strong, still beat like muffled drums, echoing a funeral march toward the grave.

In this wide field of the world's battles, in the encampment of life, do not be like dumb, driven cattle be a hero in the strife. Trust not in the future, no matter how pleasant; let the dead past bury its dead. Act in the living present, with a strong heart within and God overhead.

The lives of great men remind us that we can make our own lives sublime, and when we depart, we can leave behind footprints on the sands of time. Footprints that perhaps another, sailing over life's solemn seas, a forlorn and shipwrecked brother, seeing, might take heart again.

So, let us be up and doing, with a heart ready for any fate still achieving, still pursuing, learning to labor, and to wait.