Mutability ["The flower that smiles to-day"]

By Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792–1822 Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.

Whilst skies are blue and bright,

Whilst flowers are gay,

Whilst eyes that change ere night

Make glad the day;

Whilst yet the calm hours creep,

Dream thou—and from thy sleep

Then wake to weep.

Source: The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume 4 (1839)

Biography

The life and works of Percy Bysshe Shelley exemplify Romanticism in both its extremes of joyous ecstasy and brooding despair. The major themes are there in Shelley’s dramatic if short life and in his works, enigmatic, inspiring, and lasting: the restlessness and brooding, the rebellion against authority, the interchange with nature, the power of the visionary imagination and of poetry, the pursuit of ideal love, and the untamed . . .

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