Mutability (by Percy Bysshe Shelley)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792-1822
Mutability
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.
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Posted by Jesus Crisis at 3/1/2009 5:31 PM 
Categories: British, Shelley (Percy Bysshe), Writing, 1800s
Tags: Romantic Poetry Percy Bysshe Shelley British Literature British Poetry 1816
Categories: British, Shelley (Percy Bysshe), Writing, 1800s
Tags: Romantic Poetry Percy Bysshe Shelley British Literature British Poetry 1816
Or, as you said recently in your poem "I Hear Change":
I hear the
Only
Thing you can ever
Be sure of is
Change.
... and while "The path of its departure still is free",
"... try telling that
To a dollar bill."
Great poem, JC (Shelley's-- and your poem, too)! Thanks for sharing Shelley's here; I enjoyed reading it.
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Thanks, Dianne! Shelley was one of the folks I was responding to when I wrote that poem. I had his poem vaguely in my mind but couldn't remember who wrote it until Eureka, it hit me plain as day yesterday morning.
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