Poetic Analysis Omnibus

Requiem – Robert Louis Stevenson

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;
"Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."

For my first poem, I’ll be looking at Requiem by Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s both useful and appropriate that we view the work through a historical context, as Stevenson wrote the epitaph himself, and had it inscribed on his tombstone – it is, in all respects, a poem about his sombre acceptance of death. It is also significant to consider the fact that Stevenson was ill for most of his life, suffering from either tuberculosis or bronchiectasis. In this sense, the narrator’s death could be seen as a sort of relief. For him, the grave is a welcome place, as it will finally free him from suffering.

This is supported within the text, as the substance of the poem concerns a first-person narrator (ostensibly Stevenson himself) describing his willingness at going to the grave. There’s no real sense of mourning within the text, nor does the narrator seem to lament his death. This is interesting given the fact that a first-person perspective is commonly used to convey a character’s inner, unfiltered feelings. One might expect the narrator to express anguish or regret at his death, but instead the poem is relatively calm; it is somber, of course, but not necessarily sad. The narrator describes that he lived gladly and died gladly - that “he lies where he longed to be.” This is very much in-keeping with the interpretation of the poem that suggests Stevenson was not simply willing to accept death, but actively longed for it, as a respite for his pain. This is seen in the two concluding images of the poem, a hunter and a sailor, as they are said to be finally coming home, ostensibly from the hardships of their professions – just as Stevenson is coming home in death, going from a place of constant pain (living with his disease) to one of comfort and respite. The line “And I laid me down with a will” is especially interesting when considering this interpretation, as “will” seems to indicate desire – that he was ready and willing to go to his death. However, it could also allude to the idea of a physical will, a last testament, thus suggesting that the narrator put his affairs in order before he died, and that he had some immediate foreknowledge of his death. This suggests a sense of inevitability or acceptance of death, while also alluding to the possibility of suicide.

Overall, the substance of the poem is primarily concerned with death and the acceptance of it. This is further seen in the actual language of the poem, as we see a repetition of the consonant “D” throughout the first stanza: “Under the wide and starry sky … Glad did I live and gladly die.” The echoing here is very subtle, but in a way, it’s haunting, almost like the inevitability of Death. Alliteration is also seen in the last three lines of the poem, in lies/longed, sailor/sea, and hunter/home/hill. This creates a sense of forward momentum, and contributes to the very structured, melodic element of the work. It therefore suggests that the narrator is moving forward to a place of death, and doing so gladly, as this echoing effect is very pleasing to the ear.

The rhyme scheme (AAAB / CCCB) of the poem is very structured as well, and the rhymes themselves are all whole and thus very pleasant. This regularity in rhyme suggests a melodic sense of “togetherness” or “wholeness” – the poem is not irregular, as the narrator of the poem is not facing a violent or irregular death. Instead, he is going calmly and gladly to his final rest. The entire poem thus moves steadily, like a boat off into the sea – a somber dirge for a mans life.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

For my second poem, I’m going to look at Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, one of my favorite poems. I think I like it so much because it simply presents a scene: a man, riding on his horse through the snow, stopping to think before carrying on. It’s calm, quiet, and in a sense, somber. Given its simplicity and regularity in terms of structure, the poem is very much open to interpretation: it offers no clear answers.

One way to view the poem is to accept it at face value: that it’s simply about a man riding through the woods on a snowy evening and stopping to contemplate the nature around him. He looks at the snow, the woods, the frozen lake, silently wondering at how lovely it all is, before realizing that he has responsibilities to attend to, and must move on.

This interpretation is supported largely by the formal features of the poem, which are altogether consistent and melodic: the poem follows a very strict iambic tetrameter, which gives the work a pleasing sense of rhythm and forward momentum. It reads very easily, and thus compliments a calmer, gentler reading of the poem. This is further seen in the rhyme scheme (AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD) which features all whole end rhymes, resulting in a very pleasing melodic echoing effect. Furthermore, the ending sound of the third line in each of the first three stanzas carries forward to become the dominant rhyme within the next stanza. This has the effect of linking all the stanzas together, almost like a chain, and contributing to the poem’s strong sense of forward momentum. Assonance is seen in the beginning stanza of the poem with the repetition of “he”, “see”, and “me,” and these long ‘e’ sounds are also found in the last stanza, in the repetition of “deep” “keep” and “sleep”. This effectively links the beginning and ending of the poem together. Overall, the combined influence of these very proper, rhythmically consistent, and melodic features would seem to suggest a much lighter reading of the poem – after all, darker and more macabre themes are often conveyed through choppy, sometimes inconsistent metre and rhyme schemes (as I demonstrate in my analysis of proceeding poems).

A deeper reading of the poem – one that I favour – is considerably more darker, as it suggests futility and dread. It suggests that the man looks out into the snow, not to marvel at nature, but to contemplate giving himself over to it, to commit suicide by walking out into the cold. He thinks about the owner of the woods, and their likely place in town, not as an idle thought, but to assure that no one will find him in the act. His horse finds it irregular that he’s stopping, for seemingly no reason, in the middle of nature – far from a farmhouse or other signs of civilization. It is also significant that the narrator focuses so much on the lure of the woods; they are lovely, not in the sense that nature is usually beautiful, but in the fact that they are deep and “dark.” The narrator even specifically mentions that it’s the “darkest evening of the year.” This emphasis on darkness seems slightly out of place in a lighter reading of the poem. Overall, this reading suggests a narrator who wants to let go of his responsibilities and give himself over to the lovely, luring woods, before finally realizing that it would be selfish – that people are depending on him, and he has promises to keep, and thus he must move on. In this sense, the repetition of the last line suggests a sort of dread and regret at the fact that he still has such a long way to go – that there are miles and miles left before he’ll finally be allowed to give over to his wish, to drift off into one last and final sleep.

This idea – of giving oneself over to the numbness of winter to escape the difficulties of life – is highly reminiscent of “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” by Emily Dickinson, another poem discussed in our course. Its last line is a reflection on the pain and numbness of trauma, as the narrator also wishes to let go. Dickinson says, “as freezing persons recollect the snow, first chill, then stupor, then the letting go.”

Admittedly, the evidence for this darker interpretation is found more in the substance of the poem, rather than through formal poetic evidence. The only concrete formal point in its favour is that the first two stanzas make heavy use of enjambments, thus allowing sentences to run on smoothly uninterrupted for longer. However, there are only two enjambments in the third stanza, and none in the forth – Frost instead makes heavy use of commas, and as a result the syntax becomes much choppier and repetitive the closer the narrator comes to giving over to death. This is, again, the only formal point I can find.

There’s almost a sort of dissonance between the formal simplicity of the poem and the darkness of its content. The only explanation I can puzzle out as to why, is that often people who are depressed put on the pretense that they’re not. To the outside world, they appear whole and happy, because that’s what they have to do to get by in the world, day-to-day. They have to put on a smile and do what they have to do. Perhaps this is what’s happening with Frost’s narrator. The poem is very clearly written in the first person, so perhaps this mantra the narrator keeps up – the formal, melodic, repetition of the phrase, “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep” is what gets him through life. He has responsibilities to attend to, and people to care for, and thus he must hide his true feelings and soldier on forward. The formal simplicity of the poem is perhaps just a reflection of that.

In the Desert – Stephen Crane

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

“Because it is bitter,

“And because it is my heart.”

As there is no discernible rhyme scheme or metric organization in this poem (I believe it’s free verse), I’m going to focus my analysis on what I believe to be the two most significant aspects of the poem – its stark imagery and strange symbolism.

To begin, the imagery in this poem is especially provocative. Despite the economy and simplicity of the language used, Crane is able to evoke a brutal, macabre image - an inhuman creature feasting on its own heart in the middle of the desert. I think it’s especially interesting that Crane uses “In the desert,” as if he’s referring not to some specific location, but to the idea of the desert itself. While it’s obviously very common to refer to the desert in this way, it speaks to the strange place the desert occupies in the human consciousness. It is a place outside of civilization – inhospitable, barren, isolated. The poem capitalizes on this association by presenting a desert scene that feels almost horrific and surreal, as if it takes place outside of time, or on some other world entirely.

Into the actual poem itself, it’s description of the creature is interesting. It is first described as “bestial,” squatting on the ground like an animal. But then it is referred to as “he.” He is given hands and said to be holding something, like a man. This suggests that the creature is thus both human and beast at the same time – it is degraded or primordial, having lost its humanity yet still being recognizable (the closest comparison I can think of is Gollum). This goes hand-in-hand with the conception of the desert as an alien place outside of time and human civilization.

The relationship between the beast and the man is also interesting in that the man greets the creature with casual indifference, asking, “Is it good, friend?” He speaks almost from a position of superiority, as though he recognizes that the creature poses no threat. He is “naked” and therefore vulnerable, squatting upon the ground not simply like a beast, but like a child. This is seen through the fact that, like a child, his concerns are more immediate and sensory – he is lost entirely in his food. The language used here is also very simplistic and repetitious (repetition of “bitter,” “it,” “because”). This creates the image of the creature as a sort of lost child, eating of his heart - and by extension, his soul.

The heart is the most obvious piece of symbolism in the poem, yet it’s left ambiguous as to what exactly it really means. As a general symbol, the heart is the emotional core of a person. To say it is bitter implies cynicism, resentment, negative emotions – yet he eats of it anyway. This could imply self-indulgent pity, as in to “eat your heart out,” however, there’s no hint of pain or suffering. In fact, he says he likes it precisely because it is bitter. He recognizes his bitterness – his degraded, childish, inhuman soul – and he accepts it. He has no choice but to accept it because it is his heart. Essentially (mind the cliché), if he can’t come to love and accept himself, no one can.

You could look deeper into this and suggest that the creature is somehow representative of humanity as a whole, and that by eating of its heart the creature is recognizing the bitter nature of humanity – how we are all simply depraved, naked children, lost in the desert. But I prefer to take the creature at face value.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud – William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Given how the three poems I’ve discussed up to this point have all been about death, suicide, and a monster literally eating its own heart, I’ve decided to do I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth. The focus here isn’t on death, but on the inner imaginings of the narrator and pleasure he takes in his vocation as a poet. The beauty of the work is seen primarily in the compelling, artistic language with which Wordsworth describes the subject, as well as in the rhyme and meter, which complement the whimsical pleasure that the narrator finds in the scene.

In terms of subject, the poem describes the speaker’s view of a “crowd” of daffodils, stretching along the margins of a lake, beneath the tress, so innumerable they look like stars in the sky. The most interesting part of this description is how the speaker relates himself to the flowers, and by extension nature as a whole. The poem is written in first person, with the speaker clearly describing what he sees, while going on about the wonder and emotion it fills him with. He first describes himself as “a cloud/ That floats on high o’er vales and hills.” This is interesting in that, by personifying himself as a cloud, he is literally aligning himself as being one with nature. This goes both ways, as he assigns human qualities to the flowers. He first sees them in a “crowd, / A host,” before remarking that they “[dance] in the breeze” and “[toss] their heads in sprightly dance.” This is not typically how one would describe flowers – he’s using this sort of fanciful language to suggest that, just as he is a part of nature, the flowers are a part of humanity. He essentially links the two to suggest a kind of harmony between them, and evoke wonder at the beauty of nature. This symbiosis/interconnection (which he continually refers to as ‘dancing’) is also seen in his mention of the dancing waves, as well as in the very last line – where he remarks that, when he recalls this wonderful memory, “[his] heart with pleasure fills, / And dances with the daffodils.”

This harmony – this dance that occurs between all parts of nature - is the central idea of the poem, and thus is reflected in the poetic structure itself. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter, and adheres to a very consistent rhyme scheme: ABABCC. While Wordsworth often uses ¾ rhymes, at no point do they interrupt the flow of the poem. As a result of these two poetic techniques, the poem reads very easily and sweetly, almost like a song. There’s a sense of flow, of back-and-forth motion reflecting that of the daffodils dancing in the breeze. This effectively contributes to the sense of joy Wordsworth is attempting to evoke in the initial three stanzas.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the poem is the narrator’s voice and personal perspective. After going on at length about the wonder of the daffodils, he specifically recognizes his place as a writer, remarking that “a poet could not be more gay” in the presence of such a beautiful sight. This reminds me specifically of A Supermarket in California, where the speaker is overwhelmed with wonder just by watching people shop. While there’s no hint of irony in Wordsworth’s joy, both poems convey the idea that it is the job of a poet to see beauty in the mundane, to recognize and appreciate the little moments in life. This is no better seen than the last stanza, where the tone of the poem becomes more serious, and creates a sense of distance within the work. While the poem previously had a sense of presence, of seeing the daffodils up close, the narrator soon remarks that this image is to him but a memory, flashing on his “inward eye” – his mind’s eye – whenever he’s alone, in a sad or pensive mood. If there is any serious conflict within the poem, this is it – the inner loneliness of the poet. It thus becomes clear why he characterizes himself as a “lonely” cloud, floating over the scene of daffodils from a distance, just as he would when recalling the image in his mind. This image comforts Wordsworth when he is in solitude, restoring him; it is not simply an idle fantasy, but one of immense “wealth.” By conveying this powerful human emotion through his writing, Wordsworth effectively fulfills his vocation as a Romantic poet. In his book Lyrical Ballads he specifically defines good poetry as evoking "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” and this is exactly what he achieves in I Wandered Lonely as Cloud.

The Second Coming – William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

For my second last poem, I’m going to try and take on yet another incredibly famous work: The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats – probably one of the most often quoted poems in literature, and for good reason. The work is extremely complex, filled with strange images, religious symbols, and occult concepts that require outside knowledge. Therefore, it is useful to evaluate the poem in terms of Yeats’ previous writing, as well as it’s historical context. The poem primarily draws on Yeat’s mystical theory of the gyre – a historical cycle of 2000 years that unfolds almost like an spiral, gradually “widening” until it reaches its fullest extent, becoming so unstable that the world descends into anarchy. It is no doubt also significant that Yeats was writing in in the aftermath of what was, at that point, the greatest and most destructive war in human history: WWI. Thus, the objective of the poem is to demonstrate the idea of anarchy and destruction – the gradual undoing of the world as it reaches the apex of its 2000-year cycle, and the immediate aftermath of such a devastating change.

Yeats first demonstrates this idea in the first stanza, through the use of metaphor and various figures of speech. He conjures up the image of a falcon turning in his imagined gyre, deaf to the commands of its master, as a way of conveying how aimless the world has become, how it has become lost to self-destruction. The image of a circling bird also naturally evokes that of a vulture, circling over the dying body of an animal (in this case humanity), waiting to feast. Yeats use of metaphor here is very effective in conveying a sense of fear and impending death. The stark image of circling birds is later used again in the seventeenth line, as Yeats describes the shadows of indignant desert birds against the Sphinx’s gaze, like a pitiless sun, thus conveying the stark reality that nature is uncaring – that the gyre is an objective force destined to bring about our destruction. This idea of nature as an unrelenting force continues in the first stanza, with the narrator’s assertion that the world is breaking apart at its centre, swept up in anarchy: something Yeats characterizes as a tide of blood, drowning the innocence of the world. This contributes to the sense of anxiety in that a tide is not something so easily stopped – it rises, gradually, as a force of nature. Therefore, this evokes not only a sense of doom, but a sense of vulnerability and a lack of agency – that end of the gyre is coming, and there is nothing any human can do to stop it.

Overall, the voice of the narrator is clearly very negative – he offers a vision of the world as something on the edge of collapse. While he speaks in very broad terms, offering sweeping statements about the world (e.g. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity”), the poem is nonetheless written in the first-person. As a result, there’s a sense of immediacy and closeness within the poem – as if we, as readers, are witnessing the end-times along with the speaker.

Furthermore, while the exact language used within the poem is not necessarily complex, it is elevated and vaguely biblical, calling upon religious terms (the most obvious being the Christian end-times, “The Second Coming”) as well as biblical locations such as “Bethlehem” – the birthplace of Jesus, which marked the beginning of Yeats’ cycle. These allusions, along with the speaker’s prophecies, imbue the poem with a sort of religious, reverential tone, as if it were truly heralding the end of the world. The cyclical nature of Yeats’ gyre is also seen in his use of repetition and internal rhyme, as he opens the first stanza with the clause: “turning and turning in the widening gyre.” This creates an echoing effect, which effectively helps to conjure the image of Yeats’ spiraling gyre, as well as aid the metaphor of the circling bird, a symbol of humanity’s aimlessness. This continues with his use of isocolon in the first two sentences of the second stanza; the echoing of “Surely ______ is at hand” effectively contributes the reverential tone, as biblical texts often use parallel grammatical structures to convey their ideas.

In terms of rhyme and meter, there seems to be little structure whatsoever: any rhymes are either repetitions of the same word, as shown above, or entirely incidental, such as the ½ rhyme of “hold” and “world” in the first stanza, or the very loose rhyme of “sand” and “man” in the second. This effectively contributes to the idea of a world falling apart in that there are small indications of rhyme, but they are fractured and weak. Similarly, while the poem is often metrically regular, following a standard iambic pentameter, there are numerous exceptions to this rule. Most notably, the number of syllables per line increases past ten in the middle of the poem (specifically lines 11, 12, 14, and 16), at the point in which Yeats begins to describe the Sphinx – the herald and product of the apocalypse. It then falls back into lose iambic pentameter after the narrator describes “darkness” falling. The incredible irregularity of the meter effectively contributes to the chaotic tone of the piece as a whole, but more significantly, it parallels Yeats’ idea of the gyre: the metre goes from a place of regularity as to symbolize the initial calm of the earth, before growing extremely irregular when the gyre reaches its apex (and the poem begins to speak directly of the apocalyptic Sphinx figure), before finally becoming regular again, thus showing that the apex of the gyre has subsided and a new cycle has begun.

[As a final side note, I feel like this poem is an interesting companion piece for Crane’s In the Desert, as Yeats similarly uses the desert as a stark, lifeless “waste” where the surreal manifests itself. While Crane conjures up a cannibalistic beast, Yeats conjures up a nightmare Sphinx, somehow already alive yet slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. The creature is distinctly inhuman, and thus can only create itself in an environment outside of human life and civilization.]

Ozymandias – Percy Shelly

I met a traveller from an antique land A
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone B (½ rhyme?)
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, A
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, B (½ rhyme?)
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, A
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read C
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, D
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: C
And on the pedestal these words appear: E (½ rhyme?)
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: D
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' E (½ rhyme?)
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay F
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare E (½ rhyme?)
The lone and level sands stretch far away. F

Since we never managed to analyse it in class (at least I assume we were going to analyse it, as it was on the syllabus), I thought that I would take a look at Ozymandias by Percy Shelley. I seem to have a habit of doing really famous poems, but this happens to be one of my favorites. I also, incidentally, happen to have the poem memorized for some reason; I can’t quite remember why. I guess I was just really bored one day.

Anyways, what makes this poem especially interesting is its central conceit: that of a statue, broken and scattered in the desert sand. It exists to demonstrate at once the hubris of mankind, the transience of our place on earth, and the inevitability of our deaths – that no matter much we try to build a legacy for ourselves and our children, things fall apart. Shelly demonstrates this by first raising both the statue and its subject, Ozymandias, to incredible heights. The poem first reconstructs the grand image of Ozymandias, the king, by recalling his features: his visage, his frown, his wrinkled lip, his self-assured sneer of superiority as constructed by the statue’s sculptor. Shelly describes the incredible power of the king through his hand and his heart, both of which represent the will he wielded over his civilization. This builds to Ozymandias’ boast, the climax of the work, in which he beckons the reader to quake in the face of his grand achievements. But there is nothing to see; his civilization has vanished. The very sharp and cutting turn of “Nothing beside remains” completely demolishes this image of power. This metaphor is the crux of the entire poem and Shelley specifically goes to such lengths to build him up before resolutely tearing him down to demonstrate the hubris of not only political leaders, but of all mankind. The metaphor of the statue demonstrates that no matter how desperately we wish to be revered, nothing can save us from the force of time. It brings decay and ruin, quickly and inevitably.

This idea is further seen in the voice of the narrator, which is extremely interesting as the poem is written from a first-person perspective. Ordinarily, as seen in many of the other poems I’ve discussed, this would imply a sense of closeness. However, Shelly uses the narrator in this case to create a sense of distance: he is not actually viewing the statue himself, but merely listening to the story of a traveler from an antique land – a place very old and very far removed from the time in which the narrator lives. This has the effect of diminishing Ozymandias’ achievements even further. In addition, we, as readers, are yet another layer removed from Ozymandias, as the narrator’s account of this tale was written nearly two centuries ago. It is not an entirely fictional account, either: in reality, Ozymandias is meant to represent the Egyptian King Ramesses, and the “traveller” is in fact a Greek historian, Diodorus, who recorded the statue’s inscription millennia ago. In effect, this story is thus an echo of an echo of an echo. By drawing on these very real historical sources, and recreating their distance through the voice of his narrator, Shelly is able to demonstrate just how ineffectual Ozymandias’ attempts at immortality were.

However, in a way, the fact that we hear this story at all is in some sense a testament to Ozymandias’ enduring legacy: although his empire has crumbled, his story lives on. Shelly, the poet, is therefore suggesting that language is the only enduring form of power, and the only form of immortality we could ever hope for.

[This is sort of a weak note to end on, but I feel that it’s relevant] The actual form of the work also reflects the fractured nature of the statue, as both the stanza construction and rhyme are only somewhat regular. While the poem presents itself as a standard Petrarchan sonnet (as it features a loose iambic pentameter and has fourteen lines), it fails to separate the poem into a clear octave and a sestet. Where we should have a volta – a cutting revelation or change in the theme of the poem – we have instead the line: “And on the pedestal these words appear.” It is not a Shakespearian sonnet either, as the poem features no rhyming couplet at the end. The rhyme scheme itself is not quite Petrarchan either, as it follows a scheme of ABABACDCEDEFEF, and many of its rhymes are improper half-rhymes. The combined influence of all these different irregularities – of formal features that are almost, but not quite, proper – therefore suggest that they have been deliberately deconstructed to fit with the poem’s central theme. The poem, like the statue, almost resembles its rightful form, but it has been defaced – either by time’s fell hand or by the hand of the author himself.

[Also (I’m probably sounding like a broken record at this point) we once again see the desert used as a place where human civilization goes to die. Ozymandias’ grand statue has crumbled into the desert, and his civilization has been swept away by sand. The desert is used specifically as a force of gradual decay, as a place opposite and detrimental to humanity.]