Each Second Is the Last
poem 879
Each Second is the last Perhaps, recalls the Man Just measuring unconsciousness The Sea and Spar between. To fail within a Chance How terribler a thing Than perish from the Chance’s list Before the Perishing!
Each Second Is the Last - meaning Summary
Urgency of Near-ends
The poem considers human attitudes toward endings and missed opportunities. It imagines a mindset that treats each moment as if it might be the last, measuring life against unconsciousness and indifferent forces. The speaker then contrasts two losses: failing while an opportunity still exists, and being removed from the possibility of trying at all. The poem favors the latter as less terrible, suggesting a paradoxical valuation of chance and timing: the pain of failure amid available possibility can feel worse than dying before one even had the chance to act.
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