Mutability ["The flower that smiles to-day"]BY 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.
"Mutability", by Percy Shelley, shows us a poetic voice that knows that dazzling is not the way to survive. From the first two lines, the use of prepositions tells us that if one's purpose is to "smile"(1), the ending is close "to-morrow dies". The poetic voice is part of a different group, as we can read in the second stanza "But we...survive their joy"(12/13). It is possible to know that it does not survive with its own kind of joy because instead wakes up to weep. The poetic voice is an observer, and outsider in order to survive that does not put at risk his/her survival by happiness.
