Lyric Poem · Nature
Time
1Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
2Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
3Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
4Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
5Claspest the limits of mortality,
6And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
7Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
8Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
9Who shall put forth on thee,
10Unfathomable 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.