Time and Mortality

Where it surfaces

• The Assignation

  The poet's chaplets are meant for the courts of Time, and Fame's assignation is set a hundred years hence in a graveyard.

• Charon

  Charon's weariness spans 'wide floods of time,' emphasizing the relentless passage of time and the mortality of all beings.

• The Sphinx at Giza

  Time is personified as a destructive force that spares only the Sphinx's painted face, while all other beauty and cities fall to decay.

• The Raft-Builders

  Time is portrayed as a destructive force that consumes even the greatest works and civilizations.

• The Workman

  The ghost's laughter underscores the brevity of life and the eventual erasure of all human endeavor.

• The Guest

  The young man reflects on historical figures like King Seti and Helen of Troy, contrasting their past with his present, and ultimately succumbs to mortality.

• Time and the Tradesman

  Time is personified as an active force that physically ages a man for imitating his work, emphasizing the inevitability and authority of time over human artifice.

• The Little City

  The contrast between the fleeting city and the enduring mountains underscores the passage of time and the mortality of civilizations.

• The Unpasturable Fields

  The mountains defy Time, claiming he will break his staff and stumble on their rocks, yet the clouds remind them that even mountains pass away.

• The Latest Thing

  The river of Time carries both beauty and filth, and the poet foresees its catastrophic flood.

• The Giant Poppy

  The giant poppy's command to 'Remember not' and its killing of gods and fairies symbolize the eroding force of time and forgetfulness.

• Roses

  The village is gone, but the roses carry its memory across generations, illustrating the passage of time and the endurance of beauty.

• The Man with the Golden Earrings

  The pirate's inability to die reflects a twisted relationship with time and mortality.

• The Dream of King Karna-Vootra

  The king's realization that his youth is gone and Vava-Nyria has been dead for forty years underscores the passage of time and mortality.

• Alone the Immortals

  The narrator mourns the dead years, but discovers they are immortal and transcend time itself.

• Spring in Town

  Winter's decline and Spring's arrival symbolize the cyclical passage of time and the inevitable change that comes with it.

• The Lonely Idol

  The entire prayer is a meditation on the swift passage of time, the fading of youth and beauty, and the inevitability of death.

• The Return of the Exiles

  The return of ancient figures after three thousand years highlights the passage of time and the mortality of old gods and rituals.

• Nature and Time

  Time is depicted as a triumphant, relentless force that has witnessed the fall of great cities and reassures Nature of the cyclical return of the natural world.

• The Song of the Blackbird

  The blackbird's belief in the novelty of its song is contradicted by the old wanderer, revealing the cyclical and timeless nature of creation.

• The Poet Speaks with Earth

  Earth's selective memory highlights how time erases human achievements, preserving only mythic and poetic echoes.