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 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.