Lyric Poem · Nature
Time
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?
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Time” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/time
Quick facts
- Poem
- Time
- Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Length
- 10 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Sad, Short
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
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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