April is National Poetry Month. To celebrate that, we have a little event at my school called Poem In Your Pocket Day. Throughout the day, we English teachers will accost students and ask them if they have a poem in their pocket. If they do, they can earn a little bit of extra credit. The poem can be a favorite they have read or something of their own creation. So, I will be carrying around my favorite poem today as well. It happens to be the source of my blog's title, so I thought that I would share it here...in my cyber pocket...as well.
"Ozymandias"
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 mock'd 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
Thank you, Mr. Shelley, for this gem.
And all you out there, why don't you slip a poem into your pocket, too, and even if no one asks to see it, you will know that you are carrying a little beauty with you all day long.
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5 comments:
"my cyber pocket"? you cheesy cheesy man! i have no idea how your wife handles you sometimes.
carry a poem in the pocket sounds like a good idea. but not to brag or anything, even if there is no poem, i always have a big piece of beauty in my pants!
Thanks a lot! I read this at school while my students were writing an essay and I laughed out loud. They all looked at me with quizzical looks.
Of course, I couldn't explain.
Still. Funny.
The thing about Ozymandias is that, while it's incredibly widely quoted, people very often get the point wrong. They remember the "look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!" and not the "nothing beside remains," and thus miss the point of the quote. This is a pet peeve of mine. See also: "This is the winter of our discontent."
But. Yeah. I will try doing thing. Some Kipling, maybe.
Moti, I think people tend to focus on the flashiest phrase, and since the majority of the world wants to be rich, powerful, and immortal, they think of Ozymandias as he wanted to be seen/thought of. Then, as you say, they skip over the point because it is too ugly and scary. Just a guess. Shelley got, though, it is the art and not the man that remains. Interesting. Guess I love this one because I have that bit of the Romantic in me.
By the way, did you carry a poem? Which one?
I was sorta goofier than you, and carried around "The Female of the Species." What can I say, I like it. It's got good cadence, and an interesting message, even if I don't really agree with it.
(I thought about using Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, but meh. Too long.)
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