The relationship between the values of fairness and justice with the poems: “A Psalm of life” and “The tide rises, the tide falls”

In this essay, I am going to show the relationship between the values of fairness and justice with the poems: “A Psalm of life” and “The tide rises, the tide falls”, both written by the same author, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, that trough metaphors shows different ways to see life.

In the case of the poem “A Psalm of life”, Longfellow shows the perspective of a young man that is speaking “from his heart” and cannot accept that “Life is but an empty dream”, or that the goal of life is dead, because it is not just with his feelings and ideals of life. Instead, he thinks life is about acting and going beyond the sorrow and the happiness. It is about fighting for what is just and fair for everyone, like a hero, always been guide by God and his laws. In addition, the young man says life is about, leaving our “footprint on the sands of time”, so we can influence or guide other persons in the future for following our (I suppose) good example, and living the moment, because we cannot trust on having a future, our life could end in any moment.

In the other case, presented at the poem and “The tide rises, the tide falls”, the author use as a metaphor the behavior of the water as the tide rises and falls and compare it with the vast cycles of the nature, in which humans are only a very small part. In addition, he says we are just like travelers that once are in a place and later they nevermore return. That the footprints we let in the sand, that is the metaphor used to describe our achievements we make in our lives, will be efface, or wipe out, by the waves and that the tides will still rising and falling, this mean that the life will continue its cycle without taking care of our achievements. This last, in my opinion is not fair neither just, because it gets into the conclusion that all we make in our lives, at last will mean nothing to the nature. This contrasted with the point of view given by the character of our first poem (“A Psalm of life”), that eventhoug he knows he will die one of these days, at any moment; he will try that his actions mean something to other persons and leave his footprints into the sands of life.

In conclusion, both values, fairness and justice, are somewhere there in the poems, if you analyze them well you can find the relationship they have with the point of both, that is actually life.

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