POEM OF THE DAY: Mutability

by Percy Shelley (1792 – 1822).

 

Mutability

 

We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon;

How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,

Streaking the darkness radiantly!–yet soon

Night closes round, and they are lost forever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings                   5

Give various response to each varying blast,

To whose frail frame no second motion brings

One mood or modulation like the last.

 

We rest.–A dream has power to poison sleep;

We rise.–One wandering thought pollutes the day;           10

We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;

Embrace fond foe, or cast our cares away:

 

It is the same!–For, be it joy or sorrow,

The path of its departure still is free:

Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;                   15

Nought may endure but Mutability.

 

Notes:

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/pshelley.htm

http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/