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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RHYMES AND RHYTHMS: 4 by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Poet Analysis

First Line: IT CAME WITH THE THREAT OF A WANING MOON
Last Line: IN THE LIFE THAT WE BADE TO BE?
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 gleam 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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