MUTABILITY

[Published with Alastor, 1816.]

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                  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 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;⁠                   15
⁠Nought may endure but Mutability.