Poems About Time
Curated by the Writory editorial team. Updated September 2026.
Quick answer: Read 14 classic poems about time and its passing, from Herrick and Shakespeare to Shelley's 'Ozymandias.' Full texts with notes on each.
Time is the quiet villain of poetry, taking back everything it lends. The poets here watch it work and answer in the only way they can, by making something that outlasts the afternoon.
Herrick tells the young to gather rosebuds now. Shakespeare counts the clock and watches the crops fall to the scythe. Shelley leaves a shattered king face-down in the desert as time's flattest joke.
These are old poems about the passing of time, which is a small joke of its own, and a comforting one.
Read autumn poems about time and change
TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME
Robert Herrick · Renaissance
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may:
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best, which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.
--Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
Gather ye rosebuds. The most quoted argument in English for not wasting the afternoon.
Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
William Shakespeare · Elizabethan · Sonnet
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
Minutes crowding forward like waves to the shore. Time gives, then ruins its own gift.
Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time
William Shakespeare · Elizabethan · Sonnet
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
He counts the clock and watches everything ripen toward the scythe. Only children outlast it.
Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
William Shakespeare · Elizabethan · Sonnet
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded, to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate--
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.
Time defacing everything he loves, until the fear itself hardens into a kind of love.
Mutability
Percy Bysshe Shelley · Romantic
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou--and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.
We are clouds, we are forgotten lyres. Nothing about us lasts except the fact that nothing lasts.
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley · Romantic · Sonnet
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
One shattered statue in the sand, undoing the proudest king who ever lived. Time's flattest joke.
On His Seventy-fifth Birthday
Walter Savage Landor · Romantic
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
Four lines and a whole life. He warmed both hands at the fire of life, and is ready now to go.
Child of a Day
Walter Savage Landor · Romantic
Child of a day, thou knowest not
The tears that overflow thy urn,
The gushing eyes that read thy lot,
Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return!
And why the wish! the pure and blest
Watch like thy mother o'er thy sleep.
O peaceful night! O envied rest!
Thou wilt not ever see her weep.
To a child who does not yet know what a single year can take. Tenderness braced against time.
On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year
George Gordon, Lord Byron · Romantic
'T IS time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of Love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!
The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some Volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze--
A funeral pile.
The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share,
But wear the chain.
But 't is not thus--and 't is not here--
Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now
Where Glory decks the hero's bier,
Or binds his brow.
The Sword, the Banner, and the Field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.
Awake! (not Greece--she is awake!)
Awake, my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!
Tread those reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood!--unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of Beauty be.
If thou regret'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death
Is here:--up to the Field, and give
Away thy breath!
Seek out--less often sought than found--
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy Rest.
His last birthday poem. He counts what the years took and squares his shoulders anyway.
Tis the Last Rose of Summer
Thomas Moore · Romantic
Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone:
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.
I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie wither'd,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
The last bloom left on the stem, and the choice to scatter its leaves rather than watch it fade alone.
Youth And Age
Samuel Coleridge · Romantic
Verse, a Breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where HOPE clung feeding, like a bee--
Both were mine ! Life went a-maying
With NATURE, HOPE, and POESY,
[Image][Image]When I was young !
When I was young ?--Ah, woful WHEN !
Ah ! for the Change 'twixt Now and Then !
This breathing House not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er жry Cliffs and glittering Sands,
How lightly then it flashed along :--
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of Sail or Oar,
That fear no spite of Wind or Tide !
Nought cared this Body for wind or weather
When YOUTH and I lived in't together.
FLOWERS are lovely ; LOVE is flower-like ;
FRIENDSHIP is a sheltering tree ;
O ! the Joys, that came down shower-like,
Of FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, and LIBERTY,
[Image] [Image] [Image] [Image] Ere I was old !
Ere I was old ? Ah woful ERE,
Which tells me, YOUTH'S no longer here !
O YOUTH ! for years so many and sweet,
'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit--
It cannot be that Thou art gone !
Thy Vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd :--
And thou wert aye a Masker bold !
What strange Disguise hast now put on,
To make believe, that thou art gone ?
I see these Locks in silvery slips,
This drooping Gait, this altered Size :
But SPRINGTIDE blossoms on thy Lips,
And Tears take sunshine from thine eyes !
Life is but Thought : so think I will
That YOUTH and I are House-mates still.
Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve !
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
[Image][Image]When we are old :
That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismist ;
Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.
Youth and I once lodged together, he says, and he still cannot believe the friend has moved out.
What Is Life?
Samuel Coleridge · Romantic
Resembles Life what once was held of Light,
Too ample in itself for human sight ?
An absolute Self--an element ungrounded--
All, that we see, all colours of all shade
[Image]By encroach of darkness made ?--
Is very life by consciousness unbounded ?
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,
A war-embrace of wrestling Life and Death ?
Eight lines that ask the whole question and, honestly, leave it open.
Autumn Within
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · American
It is autumn; not without
But within me is the cold.
Youth and spring are all about;
It is I that have grown old.
Birds are darting through the air,
Singing, building without rest;
Life is stirring everywhere,
Save within my lonely breast.
There is silence: the dead leaves
Fall and rustle and are still;
Beats no flail upon the sheaves,
Comes no murmur from the mill.
It is autumn, he says, not outside but in the chest. Middle age named exactly.
So We'll Go No More a-Roving
George Gordon, Lord Byron · Romantic
So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
The heart wears out the breast, he says, and even love must pause for breath. Time in twelve lines.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most famous poem about time?
Robert Herrick's 'To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,' which opens 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,' is the most quoted poem about time in English. Shelley's 'Ozymandias,' on the fall of a proud king, is a close second, and both are here in full.
What are short poems about time passing?
Walter Savage Landor's 'On His Seventy-fifth Birthday' says a whole life in four lines. Coleridge's 'What Is Life?' and Longfellow's 'Autumn Within' are both short meditations on the passing years.
Which poems are about carpe diem, seizing the day?
Herrick's 'To the Virgins' is the classic carpe diem poem, urging readers to make the most of time while it lasts. Byron's 'So We'll Go No More a-Roving' offers the wistful other side of that coin.
How to write a poem about time
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