EVERY lesson has a reflection in the last 5 minutes. WHAT - SO WHAT - NOW WHAT?

Out of Time

I saw Time flowing like 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.

So Time, the wave, enfolds me in its bed,

Or Time, the bony knife, it runs me through.

'Skulker, take heart,' I thought my own heart said.

'The flood, the blade go by - Time flows, not you!'

Vilely, continuously, stupidly,

Time takes me, drills me, drives through bone and vein,

So water bends the seaweeds in the sea,

The tide goes over, but the weeds remain.

Time, you must cry farewell, take up the track,

And leave this lovely moment at your back!

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.

His fate pursues him; he must open doors,

Or close them, for that pale and faceless host

Without a flag, whose agony implores

Birth to be flesh, or funeral, to be ghost.

Out of all reckoning, out of dark and light,

Over the edges of dead Nows and Heres,

Blindly and softly, as a mistress might,

He keeps appointments with a million years.

I and the moment laugh, and let him go,

Leaning against his golden undertow.

III

Leaning against the golden undertow,

Backward, I saw the birds begin to climb

with bodies hailstone-clear, and shadows flow,

Fixed in a sweet meniscus, out of Time,

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 -

The moment's world it was; and I was part,

Fleshless and ageless, changeless and made free.

'Fool, would you leave this country?' cried my heart,

But I was taken by the suck of sea.

The gulls go down, the body dies and rots,

And Time flows past them like a hundred yachts.

Out of Time

Slessor represents the human experience of time in “Out of Time” on several levels, weaving from abstract metaphors to natural imagery. He attempts to capture the subjective human experience of a time passing rushing our consciousness to oblivion, and the paradoxical feeling of eternity and immorality in the moment.

This paradox challenges our assumptions about time being experienced by humans as a constant – and is primarily shown through the personification of “Time” and the “Moment” as forces in conflict. This personification is suggested by the capitalisation. Time is depicted as unrelenting, violent and destructive through the imagery of “the bony knife” and “takes me”, “drills me”, and “drives through blood and vein” and the repetition of “me” highlights the subjective and negative experience of time, emphasises Slessor’s idea that time is what wears our physical bodies down.

The Moment is then presented by Slessor as an opposing force to time. The persona of the poem finds comfort with the Moment in the personified “I and the moment laugh,” and “leaning against his golden undertow”. The violent imagery associated with Time is contrasted to the positive and warm imagery of golden and the imagery of “sweet meniscus”. The imagery used for the Moment evokes growth and life, providing the reader with a tonal difference and respite from the unrelenting symbolism of death at the start of the stanza in the haunting imagery of “pale and faceless host” and “funeral, to be ghost”.

The repetition of the rhythm and rhyme in “dark and light”, “Nows and Heres”, “mistress might”, “million years” – creates a chanting, meditative quality, suspending the feeling of the poem rushing forward, providing the reader a brief respite and making them feel a seeming Moment of eternity.

The repetition of “-less” and the resonance of the repeated ‘e’ sounds in “fleshless and ageless, changeless and made free” links the words and their underlying concepts, which Slessor uses to suggest the ability for the Moment to liberate the persona from Time, and grant the persona, the reader and consequently humanity – a fleeting but true sense of immortality.

The personification and symbol of the heart, crying “Fool, would you leave this country?” is a way for Slessor to explore the desires of humans who want to be free from the ravages of time and mortality.

However, the repetition of the line “And Time flows past them like a hundred yachts” that is introduced at the start of the poem brings the reader back to the harsh truth, that time is unrelenting and while moments may offer brief respite, it seems that as always “the body dies and rots”, striking at an anxiety at the core of human experience – the impending doom that time brings us closer to death.

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