The ever-whirling wheel
Of Change; the which all mortal things doth sway.

Spenser evokes the familiar Renaissance image of Fortune’s (or Change’s) wheel: an unceasing rotation that lifts and casts down all earthly conditions. The phrase “all mortal things doth sway” underscores the universality of mutability—no human power, status, or achievement is exempt from alteration and decline. In Spenser’s moral-poetic universe, this is not merely a lament but a reminder of the instability of worldly goods and the need to seek what is constant beyond “mortal things.” The lines compress a whole philosophy of history and personal fate into a vivid mechanical metaphor: change is not occasional but perpetual, and it governs the temporal realm.