What does the poet advise us to be?

In "A Psalm of Life," Henry Wadsworth Longfellow advises us to live actively and not to embrace a cynical or nihilistic outlook on life. He specifically seems to rebuke the idea that death itself makes life meaningless. He references the old adage of returning to dust and says that it is not "spoken of the soul." He specifically encourages us to live so that we may one day leave our footprints behind so that someone in the future who has perhaps become weary and cynical will see them and "take heart again." "A Psalm of Life" is, in itself, a celebration of the act of living. Longfellow revels in the possibilities that a single life may offer, and thinks it absolutely foolish not to take advantage of them to the fullest.

The poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, advises us in this poem to be "a hero in the strife." By this, he means that we should not allow the world to simply pass us by; we are not "cattle," and we should not simply follow, unthinking, what others are doing, or trust that everything will simply turn out all right without our contributing to this. He advises us to "act," striving continually to make our own lives "sublime." If we act, we may be able to make an impression upon the world, which could have a cumulative effect in that others might see what we have done and be inspired by it. He advises us to strive—not only to improve our own lives, laboring towards the achievements we seek, but also to improve the state of the world and stand as an example to others of what is possible.