It’s Friday the 13th today, so I felt a poem on mortality would be appropriate.
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?
This poem immediately conjured an image of Dali’s “Persistence of Memory,” where time is depicted as fluid and rippling. It also reminded me a lot of the Pink Floyd song “Time.” I can’t help but wonder if Shelley inspired these other works.
If you think about it, this poem is way ahead of its time (pun intended). It’s my understanding that the view of time and space as waves is a fairly recent concept. The poem definitely does not present time in a linear manner; it is something that swirls around us, surging in waves, with a depth that is beyond our comprehension.
The strangest thing about this poem, though, is the sense of imminent mortality. Time is associated with death and the imagery used in the poem builds on this association. But here’s what really gets me. Shelley wrote this poem in 1821. He died the next year at the ripe age of 29. As I read through the poem a second and third time, I began to feel that Shelley was anticipating his death, that somehow he sensed that his life was nearing its end. I’ve always believed that poets and artists are able to tap into a state of consciousness that provides visions and promotes intuition, and I feel that Shelley certainly did so when he composed this poem.
Love the poem. Time as a subject is an obsession of mine. I feel stupid to link myself but this old post is proof: http://symbolreader.net/2013/05/03/in-heraclitus-river-the-mystery-of-time/ (you do not have to read it 🙂
Of course I had to read it!! It was brilliant, BTW. When I have time (ha ha) I will definitely read all of “In Search of Lost Time.” You also piqued my interest in Macbeth. That might be something worth re-reading as Halloween (Samhain) draws closer. Cheers, and have a wonderful weekend!
Macbeth is amazing. Alain de Botton wrote that to read Proust you have to be bedridden for an extended period of time or in prison. Have a good weekend, too.
LOL – well, I hope those things do not happen to either of us.
Can someone please just tell me when this was written? I cannot find it.
Hi Bob. According to my book on English Romantic Writers, it was originally written in 1821. Cheers!
Tell me the summary of this poem plz as soon as possible , plz .
Really helped me. Was going to do a summary and its main idea was not easy to get. Thanks.
Thank you for your comment. I’m glad that you found this helpful. Cheers!
can Any one tell me the Inroduction and the structure of the poem ?