A Psalm Of Life

In the poem, war symbolizes the dark dramatic vision the young man offers of life itself as a hyper-charged environment of perpetual conflict and dramatic challenges, although Longfellow resists drawing on any actual conflict. Born too late to recall the American Revolution and too young to remember the War of 1812, Longfellow here uses the concept of battle as a heroic symbol that draws as much the myths and legends of Antiquity as it does his own nation’s history. In Antiquity, war becomes a test of the young man’s courage and commitment. In Stanza 5, the poem develops an extended metaphor in imagining life itself as a long and broad field of battle, each person’s life a kind of temporary encampment in a much wider conflict that goes on and on. Using war as his symbol for life, Longfellow suggests that heroism comes not from cowardice but from confrontation, not from shirking from the challenges of conflict but rather rising to their call. The poem uses the symbol of war to offer a dramatic choice that is really no choice at all: be like one of those battle-tested heroes who define themselves and their mettle in the very thick of conflict with vision and confidence or be cannon fodder, terrified of the challenges, retreating into passivity, acting like a farm cow, driven, unspectacular, and inglorious.