Laudator Temporis Acti

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) wrote a poem entitled A Psalm of Life, that starts "Tell me not, in mournful numbers, / Life is but an empty dream!" Franklin P. Adams (1881-1860) wrote a parody entitled A Psalm of Labouring Life, with which every prole can identify. First the parody, then the original.

Franklin P. Adams, A Psalm of Labouring Life:

Tell me not, in doctored numbers,
  Life is but a name for work!
For the labour that encumbers
  Me I wish that I could shirk.

Life is phony! Life is rotten!
  And the wealthy have no soul;
Why should you be picking cotton,
  Why should I be mining coal?

Not employment and not sorrow
  Is my destined end or way;
But to act that each tomorrow
  Finds me idler than today.

Work is long, and plutes are lunching;
  Money is the thing I crave;
But my heart continues punching
  Funeral time-clocks to the grave.

In the world's uneven battle,
  In the swindle known as life,
Be not like the stockyard's cattle --
  Stick your partner with the knife!

Trust no boss, however pleasant!
  Capital is but a curse!
Strike, -- strike in the living present!
  Fill, oh fill the bulging purse!

Lives of strikers all remind us
  We can make our lives a crime,
And, departing, leave behind us
  Bills for double overtime.

Charges that, perhaps another,
  Working for a stingy ten
Bucks a day, some mining brother
  Seeing, shall walk out again.

Let us, then, be up and striking,
  Discontent with all of it;
Still undoing, still disliking,
  Learn to labour -- and to quit.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life:

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.

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.

In the world's broad field of battle,
  In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
  Be a hero in the strife!

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!

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.

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