Time by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The speaker addresses time as a fathomless sea whose waves are years and whose waters contain human tears. Portraying it as treacherous, destructive and insatiable, the speaker asks who would venture onto it.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Philosophical Poetry · 107 words
First lines
Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years, / Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe / Are brackish with the salt of human tears! / Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow / Claspest the limits of mortality, / And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, / Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; / Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, / Who shall put forth on thee, / Unfathomable Sea?
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — An impassioned address to time unfolds in ten rhyming lines and ends with an unanswered question.
- Philosophical Poetry — The extended sea metaphor considers time's relation to mortality and human suffering.
Tags
passage of time · mortality · human suffering · sea metaphor
What this Textopian page supports
Time is listed on Textopian as a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Philosophical Poetry
- Length: 107 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
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