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(Print poem and do activity on paper) (pdf file - 72 KB)
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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According to Strangecompany.org:
"Percy Bysshe Shelley was the husband of Mary Shelley (writer of Frankenstein) and a contemporary and friend of Lord Byron. He is widely regarded as the finest poet of the Romantic period and possibly the greatest English poet of all time. A philosopher and atheist , expelled from Oxford for the publication of a pamphlet entitled "The Necessity of Atheism", Shelley led an itinerant life and died in 1822, drowned.
"Ozymandias" was written in 1818, in the same year that he started on his most famous work, "Prometheus Unbound". At the time he was wandering in Italy and Venice with Mary and Clare Claremont, the cast-off lover of Byron, and the melancholy that affected him during that time shows through clearly in "Ozymandias"."
On MOOzymandias it explains: "The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote "Ozymandias" late in 1817, possibly as part of a kind of game or contest with his friend, Horace Smith, to see if both could compose a sonnet on the theme of the ruined monument to himself built by Pharoah Ramses II in the Egyptian desert."
It goes on to say:
"A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines following a set rhyme scheme and other poetic conventions. Part of the challenge of writing a sonnet is to try to express a theme, or certain ideas and feelings, within the constraints of the form. It's like playing a game according to the rules or within the confines of a field or a court--or of a digital environment."
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Write a poem about a monument or ruins.Send it to us.
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Monument poem
For whom do you want to make a monument?
I'd like to embody something beautiful.
It's a good idea to embody a concept.
Or maybe use a camera as a tool.
Marchenkova Viktoria
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Monument poem
In a silent reverie there was nothing,
But nothing could hardly be literally nothing
Not only because of the letters n, o, t, h, i, n, g;
Which occupy space in a given period of time
It was something,
Nothing but my monumental reverie.
Ojong Gerrald
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Monument poem
Oh cruel Creator,
You gave me passions and feelings,
Despite that, you deserted me in my despair,
In front of your statue,
I just want to tell you,
I hate you.
Eric Ramirez Rodriguez
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A monument poem
An Ozymandain Kingdom
Hourglass shattered by lighting cracks
Sands of time twisted by dry desert storms
Dust scattered to fill what inscription lacks
Uncovering an ancient rulers form
An Ozymandain kingdom once stood
Ruling fists coated in iron and steel
Feeding an ego as fast as they could
Arrogance with a strength the land could feel
Nature remedies the evil within
Erratic elements out of control
Burning this injustice from hearts of men
Desert air filled with greed's smoldering coals
Sandstorms come spinning to erase the fame
Dusty ruins scornfully mock the name
Kellye Sibley
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