"Out of Time" is Australian poet Kenneth Slessor's mournful, mystical reflection on time—here personified as capital-T "Time," a godlike figure who's nonetheless at the mercy of his own law. The poem's speaker feels helpless before Time's currents: like the ocean, Time sweeps along endlessly and impassively, rushing toward the future and ending every "lovely moment." Once, though, the speaker felt they had escaped this rush. Standing on a beach, they sank so deeply into the present moment that they were, for just a little while, "out of Time." In this poem, Time is an ocean that drowns everyone. But in some precious moments, people can feel as if they're sailing, not sinking. Slessor published this poem in his important 1939 collection Five Bells: XX Poems.

• Read the full text of “Out of Time”

• “Out of Time” Summary

• “Out of Time” Themes

  • 

    The Merciless Passage of Time

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-14
    • Lines 15-28
    • Lines 39-42
  • 

    The Magic of the Present Moment

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 29-38

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Out of Time”

  • Lines 1-4

    I saw Time ...
    ... under Harbour's hair.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 5-12

    So Time, the ...
    ... the weeds remain.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 13-14

    Time, you must ...
    ... at your back!

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 15-22

    Time leaves the ...
    ... to be ghost.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 23-28

    Out of all ...
    ... his golden undertow.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 29-36

    Leaning against the ...
    ... waters and peninsula—

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 37-42

    The moment's world ...
    ... a hundred yachts.

    

    

    

    

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• “Out of Time” Symbols

  • 

    The Ocean

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-2: “I saw Time flowing like a hundred yachts / That fly behind the daylight”
    • Lines 3-4: “the quince-bright, bitter slats / Of sun gone thrusting under Harbour's hair”
    • Line 5: “So Time, the wave, enfolds me in its bed,”
    • Line 8: “Time flows”
    • Line 11: “So water bends the seaweeds in the sea”
    • Line 28: “Leaning against his golden undertow”
    • Line 33: “Out of the torrent”
    • Line 40: “I was taken by the suck of sea”

• “Out of Time” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Simile

    

    

    

    

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    Where simile appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “I saw Time flowing like a hundred yachts”
    • Lines 3-4: “piercing, like the quince-bright, bitter slats / Of sun”
    • Line 11: “So water bends the seaweeds in the sea”
    • Lines 25-26: “Blindly and softly, as a mistress might, / He keeps appointments with a million years”
    • Lines 33-34: “like the fainter land / Lensed in a bubble's ghostly camera”
    • Line 42: “And Time flows past them like a hundred yachts”

  • Personification

    

    

    

    

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    Where personification appears in the poem:

    • Line 4: “sun gone thrusting under Harbour's hair”
    • Lines 7-8: “"Skulker, take heart," I thought my own heart said. / "The flood, the blade go by—Time flows, not you!"”
    • Lines 9-10: “Vilely, continuously, stupidly, / Time takes me, drills me, drives through bone and vein,”
    • Lines 13-14: “Time, you must cry farewell, take up the track, / And leave this lovely moment at your back!”
    • Lines 15-18: “Time leaves the lovely moment at his back, / Eager to quench and ripen, kiss or kill; / To-morrow begs him, breathless for his lack, / Or beauty dead entreats him to be still.”
    • Lines 19-20: “His fate pursues him; he must open doors, / Or close them,”
    • Lines 25-26: “Blindly and softly, as a mistress might, / He keeps appointments with a million years.”
    • Line 27: “I and the moment laugh, and let him go,”
    • Line 39: “"Fool, would you leave this country?" cried my heart,”

  • Metaphor

    

    

    

    

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    Where metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Line 4: “Harbour's hair”
    • Lines 5-6: “So Time, the wave, enfolds me in its bed, / Or Time, the bony knife, it runs me through.”
    • Line 28: “Leaning against his golden undertow.”
    • Line 29: “Leaning against the golden undertow,”
    • Line 34: “Lensed in a bubble's ghostly camera”

  • Parallelism

    

    

    

    

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    Where parallelism appears in the poem:

    • Line 5: “Time, the wave”
    • Line 6: “Time, the bony knife”
    • Line 8: “The flood, the blade”
    • Line 10: “takes me, drills me”
    • Line 16: “quench and ripen, kiss or kill”
    • Line 22: “Birth to be flesh, or funeral, to be ghost”
    • Line 23: “Out of,” “out of”
    • Line 41: “The gulls go down, the body dies and rots,”

  • Repetition

    

    

    

    

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    Where repetition appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “I saw Time flowing like a hundred yachts”
    • Line 14: “And leave this lovely moment at your back!”
    • Line 15: “Time leaves the lovely moment at his back,”
    • Line 28: “Leaning against his golden undertow.”
    • Line 29: “Leaning against the golden undertow,”
    • Line 42: “And Time flows past them like a hundred yachts.”

  • Imagery

    

    

    

    

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    Where imagery appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-4: “a hundred yachts / That fly behind the daylight, foxed with air; / Or piercing, like the quince-bright, bitter slats / Of sun gone thrusting under Harbour's hair.”
    • Lines 20-21: “that pale and faceless host / Without a flag”
    • Line 28: “Leaning against his golden undertow.”
    • Line 29: “Leaning against the golden undertow,”
    • Lines 30-32: “I saw the birds begin to climb / With bodies hailstone-clear, and shadows flow, / Fixed in a sweet meniscus”
    • Lines 33-36: “Out of the torrent, like the fainter land / Lensed in a bubble's ghostly camera, / The lighted beach, the sharp and china sand / Glitters and waters and peninsula—”

• “Out of Time” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Yachts
  • Foxed
  • Slats
  • Quince-bright
  • Enfolds
  • Skulker
  • Vilely
  • Quench
  • Entreats
  • Mistress
  • Undertow
  • Meniscus
  • Torrent
  • Lensed
  • China
  • Peninsula
  • (Location in poem: Line 1: “I saw Time flowing like a hundred yachts”; Line 42: “Time flows past them like a hundred yachts”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Out of Time”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Out of Time” Speaker

• “Out of Time” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Out of Time”

• More “Out of Time” Resources

  • External Resources

    • A Brief Biography — Learn more about Slessor's life and work via the Poetry Foundation.

    • Slessor's Influence — Read an article that discusses Slessor's influence on Australian poetry.

    • An Appreciation of the Poem — Check out a short essay from the Sydney Review of Books discussing the poem's backdrop.

    • Slessor's Papers — Explore Slessor's correspondence, diaries, and manuscripts through the National Library of Australia.

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Kenneth Slessor

    • Beach Burial

    • Five Bells

    • Sleep

    • William Street

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