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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TWO FUNERALS: 1. by LOUIS UNTERMEYER PHYLLIDA AND CORYDON by NICHOLAS BRETON THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH by ROBERT BROWNING A DOUBLE STANDARD by FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 52. WILLOWWOOD (4) by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI |