Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology

Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

References to this poem

Time’s sea hath been five years at its slow ebb

  • Time’s sea hath been five years at its slow ebb;
  • Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand,
  • Since I was tangled in thy beauty’s web,
  • And snared by the ungloving of thy hand:
  • And yet I never look on midnight sky,
  • But I behold thine eyes’ well-memoried light;
  • I cannot look upon the rose’s dye,
  • But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight:
  • I cannot look on any budding flower,
  • But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips,
  • And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour
  • Its sweets in the wrong sense. — Thou dost eclipse
  • Every delight with sweet remembering,
  • And grief unto my darling joys dost bring.

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MLA Style: Works Cited

Keats, John. “Time’s sea hath been five years at its slow ebb.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, by G. Kim Blank. Edition 3.28 , University of Victoria, 24 September 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_times_sea_hath_been_five_years.html.

Chicago Style: Note

John Keats, “Time’s sea hath been five years at its slow ebb,” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.28 , last modified 24th September 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_times_sea_hath_been_five_years.html.

Chicago Style: Bibliography

Keats, John. “Time’s sea hath been five years at its slow ebb.” Mapping Keats’s Progress: A Critical Chronology, Edition 3.28 , last modified 24th September 2026. https://johnkeats.uvic.ca/poem_times_sea_hath_been_five_years.html.