Each Second Is the Last

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.