The Sandcastle

We ask if there be merit in the sand Conformed from heart and hand on summer’s day? However well the moat and turrets planned, The lapping of the sea’s not far away. O, that the tide shall come, we know too well: Then dream and substance shall together fall. A Babylon for which no tongue shall tell; The sea, the settling sea, shall settle all. And that shall come, but yet, it is not now, And all of time is moments such as these; Before the fall, there is not need to bow; The sea shall come, but now, the warming breeze. And if it soon shall end, as so it be, There’s yet our moment still, before the sea.