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 last forever

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 wose

Or cast our cares away;

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

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