[Let that which is to come be as it may...]
[Let that which is to come be as it may...]
Original Text
John Masefield, Poems (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1945).
1Let that which is to come be as it may,
2Darkness, extinction, justice, life intense
3The flies are happy in the summer day,
4Flies will be happy many summers hence.
5Time with his antique breeds that built the Sphynx
6Time with her men to come whose wings will tower,
7Poured and will pour, not as the wise man thinks,
8But with blind force, to each his little hour.
9And when the hour has struck, comes death or change,
10Which, whether good or ill, we cannot tell,
11But the blind planet will wander through her range
12Bearing men like us who will serve as well.
13The sun will rise, the winds that ever move
14Will blow our dust that once were men in love.
Publication Start Year
1916
Publication Notes
Sonnets (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1916).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Form