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Comparing Tide Rises, The Tide Falls And A Psalm Of Life

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow uses imagery in “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” and “A Psalm of Life” to show his outlook on life and death. He uses footprints as imagery in both poems. In “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” Longfellow shows how the tide washes away footprints. In “A Psalm of Life” he shows that footprints stay and other people can see them. Though they are different outlooks, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow shows his outlooks on life and death in “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” and “A Psalm of Life.” In “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls,” Longfellow shows how the tide washes footprints away at the beach. “The little waves, with their soft white hands, / Efface the footprints in the sands, / And the tide rises, the tide falls” (Longfellow Lines 8-10). When footprints are made on a beach, eventually the tide will come and wash the footprints away. This imagery shows one of Longfellow’s outlooks on life and death. It is that when you die everything is washed away like the footprint is washed away by the tide. This means that you should do whatever you want while you're alive because once you die everyone will forget about you and none of it will matter. …show more content…

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; (Longfellow Lines 25-28)
The imagery in this poem is the opposite of what is shown in “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls.” In this poem, it says that your footprints will be left behind. This means that people aren’t going to forget about you after you die and that what you do in your life will be remembered. Later on in the poem, Longfellow shows how your footprints are your legacy. Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn

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