Poet's corner No.8

"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 stili is free:

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;

Nought may endure but Mutability."

Mutability

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1816