Mutability

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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:

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 Mutablilty.

Next 10 Poems

• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Night
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Ode To The West Wind
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : On A Dead Violet
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : On Death
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : One Sung Of Thee Who Left The Tale Untold
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : One Word Is Too Often Profaned
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Ozymandias
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Prometheus Unbound: Act I ( Excerpt )
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Queen Mab: Part Vi ( Excerpts )
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Remorse

Previous 10 Poems

• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Music, When Soft Voices Die
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Mont Blanc: Lines Written In The Vale Of Chamouni
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Mont Blanc
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Love's Philosophy
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Lines Written In The Bay Of Lerici
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Lines
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Lift Not The Painted Veil Which Those Who Live
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Julian And Maddalo ( Excerpt )
• Percy Bysshe Shelley : Invocation