William Ernest Henley

Rhymes and Rhythms. 4. It Came With the Threat of a Waning Moon

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?