Smooth between sea and land

Alfred Edward Housman

Smooth between sea and land

Is laid the yellow sand,

And here through summer days

The seed of Adam plays.

Here the child comes to found

His unremaining mound,

And the grown lad to score

Two names upon the shore.

Here, on the level sand,

Between the sea and land,

What shall I build or write

Against the fall of night?

Tell me of runes to grave

That hold the bursting wave,

Or bastions to design

For longer date than mine.

Shall it be Troy or Rome

I fence against the foam,

Or my own name, to stay

When I depart for aye?

Nothing: too near at hand,

Planing the figure sand,

Effacing clean and fast

Cities not built to last

And charms devised in vain,

Pours the confounding main.

Fonte (terceira e quarta estrofes): Hardy, G. H. 2000 [1940]. Em defesa de um matemático. SP, Martins Fontes. Poema publicado em livro em 1936.