Posted: 12/12/2009 8:32:15 PM EDT
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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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd 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. The central theme of "Ozymandias" is the inevitable decline of all people, and of the empires they build, however mighty in their own time. |
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In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows: "I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone, "The King of Kings; this mighty City shows "The wonders of my hand." The City's gone, Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose The site of this forgotten Babylon. We wonder, and some Hunter may express Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace, He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place. |
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THAT is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees - Those dying generations - at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come. |
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Quoted: 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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd 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. The central theme of "Ozymandias" is the inevitable decline of all people, and of the empires they build, however mighty in their own time. Desolate and Forsaken,Eerily Moaning Dark Winds Murmur Incantations,Dusk Calls Forth Shadows Spirits of the Glorious Dead Lingering,Bound to this Place They Whisper of Untold Sagas,of Long Dead Cities the Seven Shining Cities Sacred to the Aphkhallu of Ages Past when the World was Young When Babylon was Blessed of Marduk and the Sound of her Armies was the Blare of Ominous War Horns and the Clash of Immortal Cymbals of Bronze Gates Arrayed in Splendour and Magnificent Walls of Sunbaked Brick of Temples of Marble and Bloodstained Altars,Long Before the Jeweled Throne of Ur Fell Silent and Turned to Dust Beneath the Endless Shifting Sands and the Inevitable Vengeance of the Elements -Nile "To Dream of Ur," Black Seeds of Vengeance |
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See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving vegetate again: All forms that perish other forms supply, (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die) Like bubbles on the sea of matter born, They rise, they break, and to that sea return. Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole; One all-extending, all-preserving soul Connects each being, greatest with the least; Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; All serv'd, all serving: nothing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown. Alexander Pope- Essay on Man |