A Time Long Past by Percy Shelley

[yusufali]

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 beloved corse
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1803-1822)


this poem i found to be a very interesting poem.
The first stanza reminds me of a quote by Maya Angelou, "Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence–neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish–it is an imponderably valuable gift." The poet expresses how we spend to much time saying we don't have time.

The second stanza is also interesting with the juxtaposition of "sweet dreams" and then describing it as sadness or delight. Although I'm a bit confused about what impact does this have on the poem and what the poet is trying to say in this stanza. I was wondering if anyone can shed some light as to what is being said in the second and third stanza and how it is being said.

Also what I found interesting is the capitalization of the "t" in time. But what impact does that have on the poem?

[Albion]

The opening simile perfectly expresses a poet's view of the distant past with its regrets for non recurring joys. Long time past is a tone, a hope and a love all of which are ephemeral and lost in a distant world. Their impact is reinforced by the single explosive syllabics that powerfully express their quality.

Time past is like a sweet dream in the night, a remembrance never more to recur. I suspect that "was" in verse two, is a poetic substitute for "whether". Ie regardless whether time was sad or delightful, each day brought a new span of experience, a "shadow onward cast", presumably being the prospect of hope rather than the dark penumbra of things closed, wherein the poet hopes we might live long within that happy hour.

Now, he expresses his regret for its passing. Nothing lasts but everything glides into a dim recess into which we cannot be admitted: it is like death carrying off the child into a distant land. The child's death reminds us of the loss of a friend referred to in the first line and therefore of the ineluctability of time.

The initial capitalization of "Time" gives personality to an otherwise bland concept as if Time is actively operating on our lives rather than being a concept in which we exist. The past tense of verb "to be" in verse one seals the regret for Time's passing which is introduced in the present tense when defining Time as a ghost of a friend. The dreams appear to be of Time itself but more likely are of events in past times; and the poet's use of the demonstrative pronoun seems to indicate a specific Time in the past, one that was particularly worthy of reminiscence.

Shelley also expresses the passage of time through the poem. He starts with a definition, then expresses the joys of the time and ends with the irretrievable loss of those events.

Shelley uses repetition when prefixing "Time long past" with "is", "of" and "for". In addition, he repeats, with slight variation in order, "cast", "last" and "past" in order to emphasise the qualities of which he speaks. I suspect that the last "cast" refers to a projection of Beauty cast like a shadow by Time rather than an attribute of the past thrown away by Time with the consequence that the Beauty to which he refers will live forever through time. The preposition should be "by" if I am correct in my supposition but poets tend to be free with their grammar.

[cafolini]

"Those were the days, my friend,
I thought they'd never end."

[Kingbob]

Time is emphasized！I like his Ode to the West，but this is also good.