That Time is Dead for Ever, Child
The speaker addresses a child and mourns a vanished past and the shared hopes they led to destruction. Life’s river flows onward without returning, while the two remain like tombs marking the memory of hopes and fears that fade.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Elegiac Poetry · 154 words
First lines
1.
That time is dead for ever, child! / Drowned, frozen, dead for ever! / We look on the past / And stare aghast / At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, / Of hopes which thou and I beguiled / To death on life's dark river.
2.
The stream we gazed on then rolled by; / Its waves are unreturning; / But we yet stand / In a lone land, / Like tombs to mark the memory / Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee / In the light of life's dim morning.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Two rhymed stanzas express the speaker’s grief through a direct address and images of a river, spectres, and tombs.
- Elegiac Poetry — The speaker mourns lost time and shared hopes, describing their destruction and the memories that remain.
Tags
lost hopes · memory · passage of time · lament
What this Textopian page supports
That Time is Dead for Ever, Child is listed on Textopian as a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Elegiac Poetry
- Length: 154 words
- Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
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