Mutation

Author: William Cullen Bryant  | Date: 1824

MUTATION

They talk of short-lived pleasure- be it so-

Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain

Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.

The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;

And after dreams of horror, comes again

The welcome morning with its rays of peace.

Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,

Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease:

Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase

Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:

Thus joy, o’erborne and bound, doth still release

His young limbs from the chains that round him press.

Weep not that the world changes- did it keep

A stable, changeless state, ’twere cause indeed to weep.

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Chicago: William Cullen Bryant, Mutation Original Sources, accessed March 29, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=65YF3SQCNA89LTN.

MLA: Bryant, William Cullen. Mutation, Original Sources. 29 Mar. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=65YF3SQCNA89LTN.

Harvard: Bryant, WC, Mutation. Original Sources, retrieved 29 March 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=65YF3SQCNA89LTN.