Mutability

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



We are as 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
    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;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
    Embrace fond woe, 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;
    Nought may endure but Mutability.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 30, 2023

38 sec read
495

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GXGD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 733
Words 126
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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    "Mutability" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 Oct. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/29171/mutability>.

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