It Came With The Threat Of A Waning Moon

William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)



It came with the threat of a waning moon
And the wail of an ebbing tide,
But many a woman has lived for less,
And many a man has died;
For life upon life took hold and passed,
Strong in a fate set free,
Out of the deep into the dark
On for the years to be.

Between the gloom of a waning moon
And the song of an ebbing tide,
Chance upon chance of love and death
Took wing for the world so wide.
O, leaf out of leaf is the way of the land,
Wave out of wave of the sea
And who shall reckon what lives may live
In the life that we bade to be?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
128

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABXBXCXC ABXBXCXC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 531
Words 121
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus". more…

All William Ernest Henley poems | William Ernest Henley Books

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    "It Came With The Threat Of A Waning Moon" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/40494/it-came-with-the-threat-of-a-waning-moon>.

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