Sic Transit — Summary

Joseph Campbell’s little poem captures the last moments of a candle. The speaker lit it only an hour before, and already it has burned down to a weak, unsteady flame. As the light lengthens and sways, then drops into the holder and goes out, there is a quiet sense of watching something small but final happen. The poem’s Latin title, “Sic Transit,” hints at the old phrase about worldly glory passing away, but here the scale is intimate and personal. The speaker doesn’t dramatize or mourn; he simply notices the flame’s fragile movement and its end. That plain observation creates a mood of stillness and gentle melancholy, as if the dying candle is a small mirror for time passing and for lives that end sooner than expected. The darkness that follows feels close and inevitable.