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Mutability

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The famous poem Mutability by P.B. Shelley. The poem starts with "We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon..."

1 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 5, 2012

30 people want to read

About the author

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1,614 books1,394 followers
Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, British romantic poet, include "To a Skylark" in 1820; Prometheus Unbound , the lyric drama; and "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.

The Cenci , work of art or literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley of 1819, depicts Beatrice Cenci, Italian noblewoman.

People widely consider Percy Bysshe Shelley among the finest majors of the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias , Ode to the West Wind , and The Masque of Anarchy . His major long visionary Alastor , The Revolt of Islam , and the unfinished The Triumph of Life .

Unconventional life and uncompromising idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley combined with his strong skeptical voice to make an authoritative and much denigrated figure during his life. He became the idol of the next two or three generations, the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and in other languages, such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy . Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and [authorm:Bertrand Russell] also admired him. Famous for his association with his contemporaries Lord Byron, he also married Mary Shelley, novelist.

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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Profile Image for Max Allen.
Author 3 books9 followers
December 13, 2023
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.
Profile Image for Preetam Chatterjee.
6,847 reviews369 followers
August 15, 2024
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.
Profile Image for Amelia Bujar.
1,809 reviews1 follower
July 8, 2024
FULL REVIEW ON MY WEBSITE
https://thebookcornerchronicles.com/2...

The plot of this poem was super boring because of it I had super hard time trying to focus on this poem while I was reading it.

The writing style was okay for the most part, but still I wasn’t the biggest fan of it.

This poem was is full of old English which really didn’t vibe with the plot which made me dislike this poem even more.
Profile Image for Chrystal 🤎.
103 reviews7 followers
August 16, 2022
One thing that never changes is change itself, sprinkled brilliantly throughout this poem 3.5
Profile Image for Jad Wannous.
116 reviews6 followers
January 11, 2018
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
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews

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