http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTALLCna6gY">
After reflecting on “A psalm of life,” I realized just how similar that poem, written many years ago is similar to a current song we hear a lot of today that echoes many similar themes, “Live like we’re dying” by Kris Allen. You compare them side by side and it is amazing how Longfellow’s words and the values they represent are so timeless. “A psalm of life” is really a deep work that Longfellow obviously thought through deeply, and so is, in a different way, “Live like we’re dying.”
“Sometimes we fall down, can’t get back up/We’re hiding behind skin that’s too tough/How come we don’t say ‘I love you’ enough till its too late” opens Kris Allen, very similar to Longfellow’s beginning of “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.” Both underline the ageless theme of despair and hopelessness that gets in the way of people using their lives to the fullest and focusing on the future and what they can achieve, not selfishly holding onto what they have.
“And we’re all staring down the barrel of a gun/ so with your life that’s before you/ what do you wish you would’ve done” Kris Allen continues, parallel to Longfellow’s verse “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.” Both hit on the limited amount of time we have-we are all indefinitely heading to the grave and staring down the barrel of gun, the only question is when.
However, the message is less about death than about using what time we have left. “We only have 86400 seconds in a day to turn it all around or you’ll throw it all away.” “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!” Both of them talk about the sheer importance of action, putting the past behind us where it belongs and looking to the future knowing it is limited. Now is the time, and they know and encourage it.
“Gotta tell them that we love them while we got the chance to say/ Gotta live like we’re dying.” “Lives of great men all remind us, We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us, Footprints on the sands of time.” It’s kind of subtle in a sense, but these are both definitely on leaving “footprints on the sands of time”—a legacy that lives after us for us when we no longer can. They both say we need to use our time to further those around us and after us—which is ultimately the focal point for both of these poems.
Both of these works read and listen well lightly, but go much deeper than the surface. Underneath the music and the poetry, there are huge themes. Defeat, death, action and legacy all come up, important things to each and every person. And, after reflecting on it, essential to making our life worth the living.
This is an awesome comparison. I never made this connection so thank you for showing it to me and for expressing it so well.
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