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One of the primary distinguishing features of the lyric form is its representation of time. The wholeness of the lyric mood is closely allied to the single moment of time which encapsulates it. The moment passed, the emotion itself alters, is mixed with other feelings and lost. The lyric's freedom from external time factors is emphasised by Sharon Cameron in her discussion of Emily Dickinson's poems:

No imaginative fiction is as resistant to the interruption of its interior speech as the lyric. For the lyric, unlike the drama or the novel, does not have to contend with authorial description, explanatory asides, or any other manipulative intrusion of its space. Nor need it weather the periodic interruptions guaranteed by act, scene or chapter divisions. Most important, however, it must attend to no more than one (its own) speaking voice. This fact makes the self in the lyric unitary, and gives it the illusion of alone holding sway over the universe, there being, for all practical purposes, no one else, nothing else, to inhabit it.[9]

This banishing of the social and temporal worlds from the sphere of the lyric does not remove their influence entirely Indeed, as Cameron again points out, "to stop the succession of moments is ... to have their inevitable passing firmly, even desperately in mind."[10] And to avoid relation with the social world can serve to increase the pressure of its ties. This area of conflict bordering the lyric moment may at times become a source of despair, as in the following poem:

THE BOAT OF TIME SAILS ON

The sky calls me,
The wind calls me,
The moon and stars call me.

The green and the dense groves call me,
The dance of the fountain calls me,
Smiles call me, tears call me,
A faint melody calls me.

The morn, noon and eve call me.
Everyone is searching for a playmate,
Everyone is calling me, "Come, come!"
One voice, one sound, all around.
Alas, the Boat of Time sails on."