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 still is free: Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.
This poem is a study in both cynicism and positivity. The poet feels that contentment is like a vision which disappears as soon as one comes back to his senses. So, rather than perturbing over mislaid bliss, one should seek to appreciate it while it endures. The poet's glum view is narrowed by his own consolatory words: since beauty and joy are transitory, we should enjoy them when they are bright and shining with astounding glow. Man's eventual end is to writhe and weep. Hence why not relish life with the proviso that there is pleasure and exquisiteness to delight us? Thus the poet incapacitates his mourning and depression.
THE flower that smiles to–day To–morrow dies; All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies. What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.
Virtue, how frail it is! friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call