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Lyric Poem · Nature

Time

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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?

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Quick facts

Poem
Time
Poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Length
10 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Nature, Sad, Short

Text, source & rights

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Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822
Source record
PoetryDBTime by percy-bysshe-shelley, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 db3e9f8a74de231a
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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