Ozymandias

As part of the Romanticism unit, we've been reading poetry in my English class. The poem that stuck with me the most was Ozymandias by Percy Byshee Shelley. My father recited parts of it to me when I was little and again when I was reading The Watchmen. Reading it in English class brought me the same chills it had in the past.

I was so profoundly impacted by this poem, that I felt the desire to memorize it. I haven't memorized much poetry outside of when it's required in English class, but when the thought came into my head, I realized that I wanted to start memorizing more poetry. Coincidentally, I was reading Cultural Amnesia when the discussion of Gianfranco Contini talked about the benefits of memorizing poetry. Synchronism perhaps?

 There is an Italian word for the mental bank account you acquire by memorizing poetry known as gazofilacio. This word doesn't even exist in English. It makes me wonder about words that only exist in other languages that describe abstract phenomena. But I'll leave that to another post.

I figured that it would be fun to try and experience gazofilacio. Also, I thought that reciting poetry will help me socialize in parties when I no longer have anything to talk about.

So I type this from memory, hoping that it is correct.

Ozymandias by Percy Byshee Shelley

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 hands 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."

Amazingly, the only errors I made were in the paragraphs. This is the true poem. The punctuation symbols may be different, because I memorized my poem from The Poetry Foundation, while I am copying this from Wikipedia.

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.

A once mighty king, destroyed by time and nature. Our inevitable fate as human beings.

I hope to memorize more poetry in the future, but first I must learn more poets and poems that I like.