# Time and Mortality in Poetry

> Theme guide for Poetry by T. S. Eliot.

A pervasive anxiety about the passage of time, aging, and death runs through the collection, from Prufrock measuring his life 'with coffee spoons' to the skeletal imagery and the refrain 'Hurry up please it's time' in The Waste Land.

## Where it surfaces

- [The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock): The repeated refrain 'there will be time' contrasts with Prufrock's awareness of aging ('I grow old') and the pressure of mortality, leading to paralysis rather than action.
- [Portrait of a Lady](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/portrait-of-a-lady): The lady's awareness of her approaching death and the speaker's imagined scene of her dying afternoon underscore the theme of mortality.
- [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/ii): The woman speaks of being 'about to reach her journey’s end,' and the April sunsets evoke the passage of time.
- [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/i): The 'burnt-out ends of smoky days' and the setting of six o'clock mark the passage of time and the decay of the day, hinting at mortality.
- [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/ii): The line 'time resumes' suggests the relentless cycle of daily life and the passage of time, underscoring mortality.
- [The Boston Evening Transcript](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/the-boston-evening-transcript): The evening quickening and the nod to Rochefoucauld evoke a sense of passing time and the weight of routine.
- [Aunt Helen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/aunt-helen): The death of Aunt Helen and the subsequent silence, the undertaker's routine, and the parrot's death all underscore the inevitability of mortality and the passage of time.
- [Gerontion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/gerontion): The speaker's old age, the dry season, and the meditation on history's deceptive passages emphasize the passage of time and approaching death.
- [Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/burbank-with-a-baedeker-bleistein-with-a-cigar): The poem meditates on 'Time's ruins' and the decline of once-great civilizations, symbolized by the decaying palace and the 'smoky candle end of time.'
- [A Cooking Egg](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/a-cooking-egg): The speaker's meditation on heaven and the loss of the 'penny world' underscores the passage of time and the inevitability of death.
- [Dans le Restaurant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/dans-le-restaurant): Phlebas's drowning and the waiter's aged, decrepit state underscore the inescapable passage of time and the approach of death.
- [Whispers of Immortality](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/whispers-of-immortality): Webster and Donne are depicted as intensely aware of death and the decay of the body, contrasting with Grishkin's vibrant but superficial life.
- [Sweeney Among the Nightingales](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/sweeney-among-the-nightingales): The imagery of death, the moon, and the nightingales' song, along with the allusion to Agamemnon's murder, underscores the themes of mortality and the passage of time.
- [IV: Death by Water](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/iv-death-by-water): Phlebas's death and the dissolution of his body illustrate the inevitable passage of time and the leveling power of death.
- [V: What the Thunder Said](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/v-what-the-thunder-said): The line 'He who was living is now dead / We who were living are now dying' underscores the pervasive sense of death and the passage of time.
- [A Song for Simeon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/a-song-for-simeon): Simeon speaks of his life as 'light, waiting for the death wind' and of being 'tired with my own life,' emphasizing the approach of death and the passage of time.
- [Animula](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/animula): The soul issues from the hand of time and is shaped by the pain of living and the approach of death.
- [Marina](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/marina): Images of death (dog, hummingbird, contentment, ecstasy) are dissolved by grace, and the speaker resigns his mortal life for a life beyond time.
- [Ash-Wednesday](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/ash-wednesday): The poem repeatedly emphasizes the irreversibility of time ('what is actual is actual only for one time') and the tension between dying and birth.
- [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/i): The emphasis on time being 'always time' and place being 'always and only place' underscores the theme of time and mortality.
- [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/iv): The 'years that walk between' and the call to 'redeem the time' highlight the tension between temporal existence and eternal significance.
- [VI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/vi): The 'brief transit where the dreams cross' and 'time of tension between dying and birth' highlight the liminal experience of mortality.
- [Juvenilia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/juvenilia): The lyric 'If space and time, as sages say' directly questions the nature of time and urges seizing the moment before it passes.
- [A Lyric](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/a-lyric): The entire poem grapples with the brevity of life, comparing human existence to a fly that lives but a day, and urging the reader to act before time runs away.
- [Song: When We Came Home Across the Hill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/song-when-we-came-home-across-the-hill): The faded wreath symbolizes the quiet, inevitable decay that occurs even when the external world appears untouched.
- [Before Morning](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/before-morning): The juxtaposition of fresh and withered flowers, along with the fragrance of bloom and decay, emphasizes the passage of time and the inevitability of death.
- [Spleen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/spleen): Life is personified as 'a little bald and gray,' waiting impatiently on the doorstep of the Absolute, suggesting the passage of time and the approach of death.
- [Ode: For the Hour That Is Left Us Fair Harvard, with Thee](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/chapters/ode-for-the-hour-that-is-left-us-fair-harvard-with-thee): The 'hour that is left us' and 'years that efface and destroy' emphasize the passage of time and its eroding effects.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/themes/time_and_mortality
- Themes index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_21_se/themes