Abstract: This study conducts a corpus-based investigation into the metaphorical realizations of tense meanings in English, namely grammatical metaphor of tense, according to the classification of tense within Systemic Function Linguistics. It shows that the grammatical metaphor of tense does exist in the English language and the relevant meaning is metaphorically realized by lexical devices, rather than grammatical forms. The metaphorical realizations of tense meanings are often associated with intensive, circumstance and possessive relational processes. Meanwhile, the metaphorical realization of tense meaning should be identified with reference to all the elements in a clause, instead of any single element such as the verb.