MUTABILITY
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon
How restlessly the speed, and gleam, and quiver
Streaking the darkness radiantly yet soon
Night closes round, and they lost forever
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various responses to each veering blast
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last
We rest-a dream has powers “to poison sleep”
We rise-one wondering thought pollutes the day
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep
Embrace fond woe cast or cares away
It is the same! For- be it joy or sorrow
The path of its departure still is free
Man’s yesterday may never be like his morrow
Nought may endure but Mutability
P. B. Shelley
P.B. Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets of the many poets.
In the case of most great writers our interest in them as persons is derived from out interest in them as writers; we are not very curious about them except for reasons that have something to do with their art. With Shelley it is different. During his life he aroused fears and hatreds, loves and adorations, that were quite irrelevant to literature; and even now, when he has become a classic, he still causes excitement as a man. His lovers are as vehement as ever. For them he is the “banner of freedom”.
It is believed his death was not accidental. Some say that Shelley was depressed in those days and that he wanted to die; others that he did not know how to navigate; others believe that some pirates mistook the boat for Byron’s and attacked him, and others have even more fantastical stories. There is a mass of evidence, though scattered and contradictory, that Shelley may have been murdered for political reasons. Previously, at his cottage in Tann-yr-allt in Wales, he had been surprised and apparently attacked by a man who may have been an intelligence agent English language.
According to Shelley, poetry is the record of the best and the happiest moments of the best minds. Poetry can never be fully explained. It can be felt, and it can be talked about with profit. Poetry present considered feeling in highly structure language. Then you have to feel it if you want to understand.
After reading the poem, I conclude that this poem is telling about “Human is changeable”. It said that we-human-are free to change from what cover our feel because we are free to changeable. The following is a glance explanation about the poem:
* I got Shelley wants to give a description of pessimistic of human at the 1st stanza. There is a simile that Shelley used in the 1st line;
“We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon”
→ the words clouds that veil the midnight moon means something that cover the light, cover a hope (which is symbol with moon), and that thing is “we”-human. It means human like a nature that full of pessimistic.
“How restlessly the speed, and gleam, and quiver
Streaking the darkness radiantly yet soon”
→ the clouds are in a hurry to streaking the darkness. It means that “we” want to immediately stroke the darkness-bad thing-around us. But is not useful because the dark side of us covers around and the hope is gone. We can see it from the last line;
→Night closes round, and they lost forever
* At the second stanza, I believe Shelley talked about the feeling that always changes made the situation change too. I conclude it from the four lines;
“Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various responses to each veering blast”
→ the pluck of strings are never the same at all
“To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last”
→ the plucks are not the same because the moods is different
* At the third stanza, I can see that Shelley give the contrast, choices in life, which one you want to be. We see it from the four lines;
“We rest-a dream has powers “to poison sleep”
We rise-one wondering thought pollutes the day
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep
Embrace fond woe cast or cares away”
→ everything is about the contrast, which one do you want to be.
* Finally at the last stanza, Shelley wants us to know that we are free to change from what cover our feel because we are free to changeable.
“It is the same! For- be it joy or sorrow
The path of its departure still is free
Man’s yesterday may never be like his morrow
Nought may endure but Mutability”
→ the truth freedom, we can free from matters. We can change our sadness or happiness because of mutability. We have different mood and different experience everyday
Human is changeable. This poem is an expression of Shelley’ feeling. He wrote this poem under the influence of some pessimistic to human at the first time but at last optimist that human are changeable and can make a better life by make a right choice.
Shelley wants us to know –in melancholic way- that we are changeable, so do your way.
