What I Live For

Life's big question - why are we here?

Photo credit: © Mary Ann Rollano - Freedom rests in Nature’s grace.

One of my favorite poems is “What I Live For.” Most people are familiar with the famous last stanza, but I thought you might enjoy the entire poem.

My dear artist sister, Beth, introduced me to this poem as a teenager. She wrote the final stanza in calligraphy on a poster as a gift because it reminded her of me.

While the poster may be relegated to the attic of memories, it remains forever in my soul’s memory. I am reminded of this poem today because of a question recently posed.

The prompt came from

Beth Kempton

, who will be interviewing Mark Nero about his upcoming book, The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life. She kindly asked us what questions we might have for him. (Beth Kempton is not my sister Beth; she is an author and columnist at SoulStack.)

And so my question was, “How or where do you find purpose as you age when all your best days seem behind you?”

I’m curious to learn how this question is answered, but in the meantime, the poem "What I Live For" by G. Linnaeus Banks serendipitously came to mind.

What I Live For

  I live for those who love me,

    Whose hearts are kind and true;

  For heaven that smiles above me,

    And awaits my spirit, too;

  For all human ties that bind me,

  For the task by God assigned me,

  For the bright hopes left behind me,

    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, patriots, martyrs, sages,

  The noble of all ages,

  Whose deeds crown history's pages,

    And time's great volume make.

-

  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,

    And fulfill each grand design.

-

  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,

  The whole world shall be lighted

    As Eden was of old.

-

  I live for those who love me,

    For those who know me true;

  For the heaven that smiles above me,

    And awaits my spirit too;

  For the cause that lacks assistance,

  For the wrong that needs resistance,

    And the good that I can do.

-

— George Linnaeus Banks (1821-1881)

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Poem from Prudence Person’s Scrapbook

An Annotated Digital Edition

Ashley Reed, Jimmy Zhang, Meagan Keziah, Authors

“What I Live For”

This poem by G. Linnaues Banks circulated widely in the nineteenth century, appearing in many secular and religious jornals, in newspapers, in hymn collections, and oratory books used by platform speakers ans students.

Bank was a British poet, editor, and playwright known for his radical politics. His wife was also a poet who supported the family in later years.

W. E. A. Axon, ‘Banks, George Linnaeus (1821–1881)’, rev. H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2008.