The transience of all things on earth is a key theme in the poem and is stated mainly in the first section. Nothing lasts; all human creations—represented in the first 13 lines by the houses that “rise and fall” (Line 2) over many generations—eventually come to naught, and everything sinks back to the earth, “[w]hich is already flesh, fur and faeces / Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf” (Lines 7-8). The earth is a universal graveyard, yet it continually regenerates itself, and human beings play their appointed role, rebuilding, living their lives, and passing on their heritage to the next generation. Everything has its time and place, its day in the sun, before oblivion comes.

The past continues, however, in the sense that it makes an imprint on the present day—past and present are thus inextricably linked. The past can also be conjured up in the mind’s eye by the speaker when he comes to an open field near the old village. The speaker evokes a rustic scene from the past, of dancing and merriment by country dwellers in tune with the rhythms of earth and the seasons, although they too are “long since under the earth” (Line 39).