“Mutability” Summary

“Mutability” Themes

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  The Power and Beauty of Change

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• 

  The Wisdom of Selflessness

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Mutability”

• Lines 1-3

  From low to high doth dissolution climb,
  And sink from high to low, along a scale
  Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 4-6

  A musical but melancholy chime,
  Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
  Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.

  

  

  

  

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• Line 7

  Truth fails not

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 7-10

  but her outward forms that bear
  The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
  That in the morning whitened hill and plain
  And is no more;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 10-12

  drop like the tower sublime
  Of yesterday, which royally did wear
  His crown of weeds,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 12-14

  but could not even sustain
  Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
  Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

  

  

  

  

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“Mutability” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Paradox

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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“Mutability” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Mutability
• Doth
• Dissolution
• Awful
• Concord
• Melancholy
• Chime
• Avarice
• Care
• Rime
• Sublime
• Sustain

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Mutability”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Mutability” Speaker

“Mutability” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Mutability”

More “Mutability” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.

  • The Wordsworth Museum — Visit the Wordsworth Museum's website to learn more about Wordsworth's life, work, and times.

  • Wordsworth's Legacy — Read a review of a recent Wordsworth biography that discusses the poet's continuing influence.

  • Wordsworth's Influence — Listen to Professor Seamus Perry discussing what makes Wordsworth's poetry important.

  • More of Wordsworth's Poetry — Read more of Wordsworth's work at the Poetry Foundation.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth

  • A Complaint

  • A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

  • Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

  • Expostulation and Reply

  • Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)

  • It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

  • I Travelled Among Unknown Men

  • I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

  • Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

  • Lines Written in Early Spring

  • London, 1802

  • My Heart Leaps Up

  • Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

  • Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

  • She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

  • She was a Phantom of Delight

  • The Solitary Reaper

  • The Tables Turned

  • The World Is Too Much With Us

  • Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower

  • To a Snowdrop

  • We Are Seven