Lyric Poem · Love
Time Long Past
1Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
2Is Time long past.
3A tone which is now forever fled,
4A hope which is now forever past,
5A love so sweet it could not last,
6Was Time long past.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Time Long Past” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/time-long-past
Quick facts
- Poem
- Time Long Past
- Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Length
- 18 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Love, Death & Loss, Hope
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 18 lines · 3 sestets
- End rhyme
- ABABBB in 67% of the stanzas. The remaining stanzas vary, often through slant rhyme.
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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 Long Past 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 82eab7eac6636b89…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.