Time Long Past

By Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792–1822 Percy Bysshe Shelley

Like the ghost of a dear friend dead

Is Time long past.

A tone which is now forever fled,

A hope which is now forever past,

A love so sweet it could not last,

Was Time long past.

There were sweet dreams in the night

Of Time long past:

And, was it sadness or delight,

Each day a shadow onward cast

Which made us wish it yet might last—

That Time long past.

There is regret, almost remorse,

For Time long past.

'Tis like a child's belovèd corse

A father watches, till at last

Beauty is like remembrance, cast

From Time long past.

Biography

The life and works of Percy Bysshe Shelley exemplify Romanticism in both its extremes of joyous ecstasy and brooding despair. The major themes are there in Shelley’s dramatic if short life and in his works, enigmatic, inspiring, and lasting: the restlessness and brooding, the rebellion against authority, the interchange with nature, the power of the visionary imagination and of poetry, the pursuit of ideal love, and the untamed . . .

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