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."
Mutability
1.
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed and gleam and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:-
11.
Or like forgotten lyres whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
III.
We rest-a dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise-one wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:-
IV.
It is the same!-For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free;
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.
1. Based on the description of Ozymandias's sculpture, make an inference about the kind of ruler he was.
2. The poem states, "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
What do you think this means?
3. What happened to Ozymandias's kingdom?
4. The main theme of "Mutability" is that human beings are constantly changing. Identify two comparisons
the speaker makes to develop this claim
.
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OPerfection Learning No Reproduction Permitted.
Lesson 1: