Mutability

 

Mutability ["We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon"]

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

                                         I.

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 for ever:—

                                         II.

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.

                                        III.

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:—

                                       IV.

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.

Source: Poetry Foundation