Poems (Henley)/It came with the threat of a waning moon
V
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 seaAnd who shall reckon what lives may live In the life that we bade to be?