The Mini Power Helpless Before the Super Power

Making self everlasting and evergreen has been man’s dream since his creation on earth but dream is dream and reality is reality, when we read the histories of the whole world we reach at this conclusion that many a men have passed who tried to make himself immortal through his deeds but failed in their missions badly due to breaking the law of nature.

There has been a war between good and evil on earth but in this war always goodness conquers evil in all branches of life. Storms, dust storms, thunders, lightening, floods, earthquakes, epidemics, diseases, rains…all these are called natural catastrophes but they appear in different shapes on earth just to destroy all negative forces working against mankind. Rains come to destroy the earth germs that devastate the crops the foods of men and women, animal, birds and the whole creatures.

It is a solid law that when men’s turn negative against mankind heavenly law becomes active anon to save mankind from all negative forces of cruel and callous men. For example many kings in the past tried to make themselves immortal through their deeds but failed because mortality is the part of God’s being not man’s being. Those who are born will die but God creates all things will not dies because He is the prime of cause of all things.

Time devours all things and leaves just goodness and destroys evils be in any shape on earth in the water, in the air or in the man’s self. Ozymandias, a might king of the ancient times tried to make his being immortal through his mortal deed but times destroys his all deeds even his own being.

Ozymandias is the most important and famous poem of Shelley. It thoroughly deals with a King, named, Ozymandias, over whose temple was written, “I am Ozymandias, king of kings, if anyone wants to know how great I am…” Actually it is a sonnet which falls into two parts: an octave comprises eight lines and a sestet comprises six lines.

In octave the main idea of the sonnet is kept close but in the sestet the main idea is made open. Actually Shelley wants to convey people’s idea of making themselves immortal through their grand deeds but they forget that everything of this world is fickle and time conquers all animate and inanimate things.

The same story Shelley was told by a stranger who was coming from an ancient land what he says that Shelley tells in the octave to the readers. The traveler saw two broken stone-legs of a statue half buried in the desert-sand, the upper part of the statue was missing but his head was lying half buried at some distance from there. Therefore the poet exclaimed in these words:

“I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said two vast and trunk-less stone

Stand in the desert, near them on the sand.”

Looking keenly at the statue it looked like the head of a cruel king of his time due to insufferable wrinkles were prominent on his face, lips and forehead. These things are considered power symbols. It was the skill of a sculptor who made these marks prominent on his face to be mocked him with the passage of time so that the visitors could understand easily the smell of power of a cruel king of his time. Here the poet exclaimed in these words:

“Tell, that its sculptor well, those passions read

Which yet survive stamped on this life less thing

That hand that mocked them and the heart that fed”

According to Shelley, these words were written on the statue-pedestal, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, look on my works, ye mighty and despair.” Looking at the statue-surrounding there was nothing except sand and a vast desert, full of dust-storm. There were no remains of his works far and near. That is why Shelley says:

“Nothing, besides remains, round the decay

Of the colossal wreck,”

To sum up, it is a beautiful sonnet of Shelley, ever written on men’s fickle works. In this poem the idea of making himself immortal through grand deeds are mocked in a fine way with the help of a statue story.

Its presenting-technique is very good; diction, metaphors, style and imagery all are fine and easy to understand. Its message is that time conquers all and none can defeat time in any way. All types of tricks to beat time prove false before time. It shows the history of time old and new.