|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
User Rating:
|
|
6.6
/10
(65 votes)
|
|
|
|
| |
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 forever:
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 Mutability.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
| Submitted Date |
: |
Tuesday, December 31, 2002 |
| Submitted Date |
: |
Wednesday, May 04, 2011 |
|
|
Read poems about / on: sorrow, power, moon, dream, sleep, joy, lost, night, rose
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Comments about this poem (Mutability
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
) |
|
|
Awais joyia (7/31/2011 12:18:00 AM)
|
|
|
|
the whole poem is symbolic. it urges the man kind to do something. it is such nice poem.
|
|
|
|
JOSEPH POEWHIT (7/31/2010 7:25:00 PM)
|
|
|
|
There is a flow of life that goes on day to day. The bottom line is change can displace and leave only the concept of mutability left to languish.
|
|
|
|
Terence George Craddock (7/31/2010 11:49:00 AM)
|
|
|
|
Mutability by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a poem addressing how change and alteration effect human beings and our lives. In stanza one ‘We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon; ’ the metaphor of clouds describes our mutability. The lines ‘How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, /Streaking the darkness radiantly! —’ reflects upon how our lives are prone to inconstant yet frequent change, yet swiftly pass. Clouds are constantly changing as do we, through various stages of our lives, until ‘soon /Night closes round, and they are lost forever: ’; clouds perish, disappear as do we ‘lost forever’ in death.
The simile of the lyre is various images of old age, ‘like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings’ observes failing abilities and the forgotten elderly with ‘frail frame’. Days of inactive, sitting, pondering, frequent naps is ‘One mood or modulation like the last.’
We rest rise to feel the emotions of perception in joy or sadness, in the degrees of experience, as Shelley describes, but ‘It is the same! ’; because regardless of how we live or what we experience, all inevitably leads to death. In the mutability of our lives, there are moments when opposing forces of change, may match or negate one another, but ‘Nought may endure but Mutability.’ The theme of ‘Mutability’ is perpetual change.
|
|
|
|
Terence George Craddock (7/31/2010 11:49:00 AM)
|
|
|
|
Mutability by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a poem addressing how change and alteration effect human beings and our lives. In stanza one ‘We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon; ’ the metaphor of clouds describes our mutability. The lines ‘How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, /Streaking the darkness radiantly! —’ reflects upon how our lives are prone to inconstant yet frequent change, yet swiftly pass. Clouds are constantly changing as do we, through various stages of our lives, until ‘soon /Night closes round, and they are lost forever: ’; clouds perish, disappear as do we ‘lost forever’ in death.
The simile of the lyre is various images of old age, ‘like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings’ observes failing abilities and the forgotten elderly with ‘frail frame’. Days of inactive, sitting, pondering, frequent naps is ‘One mood or modulation like the last.’
We rest rise to feel the emotions of perception in joy or sadness, in the degrees of experience, as Shelley describes, but ‘It is the same! ’; because regardless of how we live or what we experience, all inevitably leads to death. In the mutability of our lives, there are moments when opposing forces of change, may match or negate one another, but ‘Nought may endure but Mutability.’ The theme of ‘Mutability’ is perpetual change.
|
|
|
|
Ramesh T A (7/31/2010 2:25:00 AM)
|
|
|
|
It is a defining poem about mutability! He has done well with clouds, lyre and ever changing Nature in a standard poem of this kind!
|
|
|
|
Gregory Collins (9/6/2007 8:41:00 PM)
|
|
|
|
hey jellyspoon, another mutated aberration from the insipid creature, are you going to suck the tits off rational explanation or just eat oreos and gummy bears and try not to offend your golf buddy, wow, to be under the sheets with you when there is love in the time of cholera, what i would not give to be slam dancing to joni mitchel with you, you have got to be in my top five influences, any thing dawg gawd......any dry and self depricating suffocate me to death words, eh jellyspoon
|
|
|
|
Dog goD 8Hate (7/31/2007 10:48:00 PM)
|
|
|
|
The immutable mutability...dare the deities design such irony in converse expression of sanctity. WOW!
|
|
|
|
Pamela Davison (8/1/2005 9:34:00 PM)
|
|
|
|
This was the most amazing thing I've read in a long time. Thank you poemhunter.com for introducing me to this author. I will be sure to read more soon.
|
|
Read all
8
comments >>
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
| People who read Shelley also read
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Poets
