Nothing is Forever Except God

A. E. Housman's Smooth Between Sea and Land is depressing nihilistic. No wonder Housman was an atheist.  He thought that all that matters was in this life.  This life is nothing.  Everything will pass as the poet says.  What matters is our eternal life and that's what we should be working on.  Here's the poem.

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.