Jan, this isn't metaphor but in these days of hyper activity I enjoy Davies' attitude to time.

Leisure

What is life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

W H Davies

Being the Bardophile I am couldn't go past old Will. Can't beat this for language, simile,metaphor whatever, in a wistful but clear eyed examination of the effects of time. Embraces all your other concerns as well- love, life, death - at least from the point of view of us fallible, vain blokes.. If you look underneath the surface of what has now become a little stale and somewhat cliched the richness of the language and use of metaphor is just sublime. Larry

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the canon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
(As You Like It, 2. 7. 139-167)

I have a visually aided metaphor for you, Jankin - by the German poet and painter Wilhelm Busch. The text translates loosely as
'For such is time, my friend:
she carries you upon her shoulder
but you bear her as you get older
and never know when it'll end.'

Here is a link that might be useful: Die Zeit

What about Blake's wonderful opening to "Auguries of Innocense":

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

I think Blake has a marvelous ability to see depth in surfaces or eras in moments.

Russ

What a marvellously versatile tool we have in the English language - so potent and so sensitive even when in translation - thank you Anyanka - and for your other examples - I think metaphor helps us bear our unknowingness - WS does it so well, Blake and Davies 'slowing down of time'.
These are great - hopefully many more will arrive.
'Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,/Wherein he puts alms for oblivion...' Troilus and Cressida

This may not be quite what you want, yet I love the sheer poetry of it:

"And since death must be the Lucine of life, and even Pagans could doubt, whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sits at right descencions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, and have our light in ashes; since the brother of death daily haunts us with dying memenmtos, and time that grows old in itself, bids us hope no long duration; diurnity is a dream and folly of expectation."

Sir Thomas Browne: "Urn Burial."

Shakespeare again.

SONNET 64
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
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.

Another quote rather than metaphor.

Henry Van Dyke said it first, but I ran into it in the lyrics of a song by It's A Beautiful Day back in the early 1970's.

"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity."

In Greek mythology, Time (Cronos) was the son of Heaven (Uranus) and Earth (Gaia). He castrated his father, and devoured his own children. Probably the most powerful metaphor of all (unless you nitpick and tell me that it's personification not metaphor etc, I never was much good at remembering the terms of rhetoric!).

Gretel Ehrlich in her book of essays, Islands, The Universe, Home, quotes Tu Fu, a Chinese Poet:

Borne headlong
Toward the long shadows of sunset
By headstrong, stubborn moments,
Life whirls past like drunken wildfire.

Nothing I have ever read sticks with me like that short poem. It gives me chills every time I read it, and I have been re-reading it for some 15 years.

So much of what we say/write/think is metaphor - just one word in a sentence can be: 'the traffice CRAWLED along', for instance (it wasn't actually on its hands and knees); 'where BURNING Sappho loved and sang (she wasn't literally on fire)'. We use it all the time in everyday speech without realising it. Then, there can be 'extended metaphor', where the whole poem or paragraph is the image, as Shakespeare's 'seven ages', (quoted in full by Larry, above). I don't want to analyse, in the following poem, which bits are metaphor and which are not - it's just a wonderful thing and probably the whole thing is an extended image anyway. And it can do with an airing. I just love poetry. (Thank you, Vee, for the Shakespeare sonnet you put up - you made me cry)

From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither; here am I.

Now - for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart -
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.

(from A SHROPSHIRE LAD by A.E. Housman)

Dido

"Suns set and are able to rise again
But once our brief sun has set
Night is forever and must be slept out."

Catullus, as quoted by Thornton Wilder in "The Ides of March."

Dido, what a magnificent poem. I'd never read that one. Thanks for posting it!

This is one of my favourite extended metaphors particularly bebcause it speaks of the boundless possibilities of our imagination - an exploration that is being denied our young people as the western world becomes ever more obsessed with 'management speak' and the dumbing down of anything that might awaken imaginative response and creativity. (Sorry - one of my hobby horses) For some reason this stanza will not paste into poetry from Marvell's 'The Garden Meanwhile the mind, from pleasures less, Withdraws into its happiness: The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find, Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas, Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade. And, I love all the other examples posted here.

Love this poem of Donne's which encompasses some of all Jan's concerns. Life, love death and time. Mainly love. Glorious writing. Apologise for the formatting but no matter what I try RP won't let me paste with proper spacing nor italicise. Larry THE SUN RISING. by John Donne BUSY old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school-boys and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices ; Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams so reverend, and strong Why shouldst thou think ? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long. If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and to-morrow late tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay." She's all states, and all princes I ; Nothing else is ; Princes do but play us ; compared to this, All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus ; Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ; This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

I just found this while browsing in our local book shop and felt it had a timeliness about it. 'Heredity' I am the family face; Flesh perishes, I live on, Projecting trait and trace Through time to times anon, And leaping from place to place Over oblivion. The years-heired feature that can In curve and voice and eye Despise the human span Ofdurance--that is I; The eternal thing in man, That heeds no call to die. Thomas Hardy. Sorry it I can't get it to appear in 'lines'.

Now that we can post poetry again I just had to bring this back up because of so lovely postings here

Heredity

I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.

The years-heired feature that can
In curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of durance -- that is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die

Thomas Hardy

Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide
Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices,
Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call countrey ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beames, so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou thinke?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Looke, and to morrow late, tell mee,
Whether both the'India's of spice and Myne
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee.
Aske for those Kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay.

She is all States, and all Princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes doe but play us; compar'd to this,
All honor's mimique; All wealth alchimie.
Thou sunne art halfe as happy'as wee,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee
To warme the worlde, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

John Donne

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

From: The Garden - Andrew Marvell

cessira (Jankin?) Thank you for re-doing the above poems. They sound so much better when set out properly.

Thank you Vee for clarifying who "cessira" is. I had thought it sounded awfully like Jankin.

Poetic prose:

..."then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said, Quentin, I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools."

(William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury.")

As we seem to have moved towards family and time I thought you might enjoy the following poem. Oh I do love Faulkner! You Yanks have some wonderful writers - possibly among the best of C20 writing in all its forms.

Generations

You are like the stem
Of a young beech-tree,
Straight and swaying,
Breaking out in golden leaves.
Your walk is like the blowing of a beech-tree
On a hill.
Your voice is like leaves
Softly struck upon by a South wind.
Your shadow is no shadow, but a scattered sunshine;
And at night you pull the sky down to you
And hood yourself in stars.

But I am like a great oak under a cloudy sky,
Watching a stripling beech grow up at my feet.

-- Amy Lowell