What I Live For
Source of witness transcribed: The Wyandot Pioneer (Upper Sandusky, Ohio)
Date of witness transcribed: 10 June 1853
Notes about this poem: "What I Live For" was printed in at least 214 newspapers during the nineteenth century. It can be found using ID 491111 in this table of most widely-reprinted poems.
While "What I Live For" was often reprinted in total, its last stanza was by far the most popular part. It was printed as part of sermons, obituaries, speeches, and other media.
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- I live for those that love me,
- For those I know are true,
- For the heaven that smiles above me,
- And awaits my spirit too;
- For all the human ties that bind me,
- For the task by God assign’d me,
- For the bright hopes left behind me,
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And the Good that I can do.
- I live to learn their story,
- Who’ve suffered for my sake,
- To emulate their glory,
- And follow in their wake;
- Bards martyrs, patriots, sages,
- The noble of all ages,
- Whose deeds crowd history’s pages,
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And time’s great volume make.
- I live to hail that season,
- By gifted minds foretold,
- When men shall live by reason,
- And not alone by gold—
- When man to man united,
- And every wrong thing righted,
- The whole world shall be lighted,
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As Eden of old.
- I live to hold communion
- With all that is divine,
- To feel there is a union
- ‘Twixt Nature’s heart and mine;
- To profit by affliction,
- Reap truths from fields of fiction,
- Grow wiser from conviction,
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And fulfill each great design.
- I live for those that love me,
- For those who know me true,
- For heaven that smiles above me,
- And awaits my spirit too;
- For the wrong that needs resistance,
- For the cause that lacks assistance,
- For the FUTURE in the distance,
- And the good that I can do.