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Gavros 9:31 Sun Feb 25
Ozymandias
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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 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.”
Percy Bysshe Shelly
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Replies - In Chronological Order ( Show Newest Messages First)
Leonard Hatred
9:48 Sun Feb 25
Re: Ozymandias
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"I should have read a poem called Ozymandias to her instead"
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kirok1
9:48 Sun Feb 25
Re: Ozymandias
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Thought Gold was tweeting about himself again for a minute... but no picture of a helicopter or mention of 442 Green St, debt, or dyslexia, so no.
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gph
1:27 Mon Feb 26
Re: Ozymandias
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One of the few bits of poetry I like.
Result of a private competition to write on the Ozymandias theme, between Shelley and Horace Smith, as I discovered from Wikipedia.
Horace's effort's not too shabby either.
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 fragment huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
Although I find cutting the number legs down to one gives it a Pythonesque quality in a way I can't account for.
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Gavros
1:49 Mon Feb 26
Re: Ozymandias
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i dont usually have much time for poetry myself but this is an absolute masterpiece.
the impermenace of humanity in a few lines.
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joe royal
7:56 Mon Feb 26
Re: Ozymandias
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So we go inside and we gravely read the stones All those people all those lives Where are they now? With the loves and hates And passions just like mine They were born And then they lived and then they died Seems so unfair And I want to cry
You say: "ere thrice the sun done salutation to the dawn" And you claim these words as your own But I've read well, and I've heard them said A hundred times, maybe less, maybe more
If you must write prose and poems The words you use should be your own Don't plagiarise or take "on loans" There's always someone, somewhere With a big nose, who knows And who trips you up and laughs When you fall Who'll trip you up and laugh When you fall
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joe royal
7:59 Mon Feb 26
Re: Ozymandias
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Between the hours of twelve and two The nagging doubts will come to you Be paranoid parents coz they're after your kids You don't know what an Aryan master race is They'll plant the seeds that will grow in time And start the disease that will poison their minds Fill them up with hatred and dress them up in robes You know how the story goes
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Darby_
10:43 Mon Feb 26
Re: Ozymandias
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Fish shop How cold the lips of salted bream
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HairyHammer
11:07 Mon Feb 26
Re: Ozymandias
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One of my balls are itching Should I scratch the itch Or sit and wait for it to go I look at the clock taunting me Early morning cold and crisp Nothing to do nowhere to go Impatiently I scratch it And the itch is now gone My only friend in the world Reminding me of my existence Alone again waiting, tick tock What's left for me to feel Should I go.
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gph
1:04 Mon Feb 26
Re: Ozymandias
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Smith and Shelley are the clear winners so far
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Swiss.
4:03 Mon Feb 26
Re: Ozymandias
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by English poet William Ernest Henley that trumps you all.
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
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ironsofcanada
4:23 Mon Feb 26
Re: Ozymandias
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London
I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear
How the Chimney-sweepers cry Every blackning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls
But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
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Dolittle
8:08 Tue Feb 27
Re: Ozymandias
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Doesn't touch the majesty of Evidently Chicken Town
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
9:09 Tue Feb 27
Re: Ozymandias
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Swiss. 4:03 Mon Feb 26
,English poet William Ernest Henley that trumps you all.
Invictus'
Invictus, eh?
Sounds like it might be about Kent. So I'm OUT.
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RBshorty
9:15 Tue Feb 27
Re: Ozymandias
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Breaking Bad at its finest.
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gph
9:38 Tue Feb 27
Re: Ozymandias
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Reading between the lines of the Invictus myth, what appears to have happened is that the Men of Kent were too stupid to find their way to the Battle of Hastings, where their fighting prowess may have made a difference (but probably wouldn't have - see below).
After the battle, Bill the Conqueror decided to make his way to London via Kent. The locals turned out and made plain their opposition to Bill by WAVING BRANCHES AT HIM.
Bill decided to go around Kent.
Rather than realising that Bill had more important things to do than slaughter a load of gurning fools armed with bits of TREE, the Kent boys claim this shows they REMAIN UNCONQUERED.
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zebthecat
10:49 Tue Feb 27
Re: Ozymandias
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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: somewhere in sands of the desert 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 Reel 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?
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HairyHammer
11:13 Tue Feb 27
Re: Ozymandias
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I went to green street today Just wanted to feel it again I found that if I sit far enough away I can still pretend that it's there Oh I know it's silly, and sad too But I don;t care, that's me When you actually think of it It was just a big pile of bricks But bricks that stood magnificent Our home our History, now gone I shut my eyes then open quickly I can see the crowds flowing Can't smell the burgers though An old woman brushes past I pretend she is one of us Did old women go to games? Someone just shouted, IRONS ! Well OK I imagined it, and it was me This place is still real though Not like the plastic promise It hurts a bit being here, not easy But it is still Green street And Green street lives strong You can all do it too if you wish Go to green street and blink slowly IRONS! IRONS! IRONS! IRONS!.
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Sniper
11:19 Tue Feb 27
Re: Ozymandias
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You blow and I’ll do the fingering
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orwells tragedy
11:41 Tue Feb 27
Re: Ozymandias
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Bill Jones had been the shining star upon his college team. His tackling was ferocious and his bucking was a dream. When husky William took the ball beneath his brawny arm They had two extra men to ring the ambulance alarm.
Bill hit the line and ran the ends like some mad bull amuck. The other team would shiver when they saw him start to buck. And when some rival tackler tried to block his dashing pace, On waking up, he'd ask, "Who drove that truck across my face?"
Bill had the speed-Bill had the weight-Bill never bucked in vain; From goal to goal he whizzed along while fragments, strewed the plain, And there had been a standing bet, which no one tried to call, That he could make his distance through a ten-foot granite wall.
When he wound up his college course each student's heart was sore. They wept to think bull-throated Bill would sock the line no more. Not so with William - in his dreams he saw the Field of Fame, Where he would buck to glory in the swirl of Life's big game.
Sweet are the dreams of college life, before our faith is nicked- The world is but a cherry tree that's waiting to be picked; The world is but an open road-until we find, one day, How far away the goal posts are that called us to the play.
So, with the sheepskin tucked beneath his arm in football style, Bill put on steam and dashed into the thickest of the pile; With eyes ablaze he sprinted where the laureled highway led- When Bill woke up his scalp hung loose and knots adorned his head.
He tried to run the ends of life, but with rib-crushing toss A rent collector tackled him and threw him for a loss. And when he switched his course again and dashed into the line The massive Guard named Failure did a toddle on his spine.
Bill tried to punt out of the rut, but ere he turned the trick Right Tackle Competition scuttled through and blocked the kick. And when he tackled at Success in one long, vicious prod The Fullback Disappointment steered his features in sod.
Bill was no quitter, so he tried a buck in higher gear, But Left Guard Envy broke it up and stood him on his ear. Whereat he aimed a forward pass, but in two vicious bounds Big Center Greed slipped through a hole and rammed him out of bounds.
But one day, when across the Field of Fame the goal seemed dim, The wise old coach, Experience, came up and spoke to him. "Oh Boy," he said, "the main point now before you win your bout Is keep on bucking Failure till you've worn the piker out!"
"And, kid, cut out this fancy stuff - go in there, low and hard; Just keep your eye upon the ball and plug on, yard by yard, And more than all, when you are thrown or tumbled with a crack, Don't sit there whining-hustle up and keep on coming back;
"Keep coming back with all you've got, without an alibi, If Competition trips you up or lands upon your eye, Until at last above the din you hear this sentence spilled: 'We might as well let this bird through before we all get killed.'
"You'll find the road is long and rough, with soft spots far apart, Where only those can make the grade who have the Uphill Heart. And when they stop you with a thud or halt you with a crack, Let Courage call the signals as you keep on coming back.
"Keep coming back, and though the world may romp across your spine, Let every game's end find you still upon the battling line; For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes - not that you won or lost - but how you played the Game."
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