IEB English Poems
2024 - 2026
,Table of Contents
Ozymandias of Egypt Percy Bysshe Shelley ........................................................................... 3
Strangers Forever Amin Kassam ........................................................................................ 8
Cockroaches Yambo ...................................................................................................... 14
The Discardment Alan Paton ............................................................................................ 18
For Oom Piet Dinuala Dowling ......................................................................................... 23
mirror Sylvia Plath ....................................................................................................... 32
moving through the silent crowd Stephen Spender ................................................................ 42
Namaqualand after rain Plomer ....................................................................................... 49
Nobody loses all the time Cummings .................................................................................. 56
Remember Christina Rossetti ........................................................................................... 60
The Tenant Na Ncube .................................................................................................... 67
The sun rising John Donne .............................................................................................. 73
Touch Hugh Lewis ........................................................................................................ 78
To me, fair friend, you can never be old Shakespeare............................................................. 83
The Discardment Alan Paton ........................................................................................... 87
, Ozymandias of Egypt Percy Bysshe Shelley
The poem begins
with the speaker
meeting a traveler The lines depict a
who describes a broken statue in a
ruined statue's
legs, emphasizing
1 I met a traveller from an antique land desert, conveying
themes of
the grandeur lost abandonment and
to time the passage of time
The image of vast 2 Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone The shattered
visage symbolizes
and trunkless legs
of stone depicts the impermanence
of human
the statue's
colossal remains, 3 Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, accomplishments
symbolizing the and the eventual
fleeting nature of decay of
power and glory 4 Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown monumental egos
The lines
Line 5 describes the emphasize the
expression on the enduring
shattered visage portrayal of
of Ozymandias' emotions and
statue
It suggests that 5 And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command authority by the
sculptor in the
the sculptor statue's features
accurately They suggest a
captured
Ozymandias'
6 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read contrast between
the permanence
authoritative and of the emotions
disdainful conveyed in the
demeanor
The wrinkled lip
7 Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, sculpture and the
transient nature
and sneer of cold of human
command reveal
the sculptor's skill 8 The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed; achievements
The imagery
in portraying highlights the
powerful emotions irony that while
and character Ozymandias
through art sought eternal
glory, only the
sculptor's
Ozymandias'
inscription on the
9 And on the pedestal these words appear: interpretation of
pedestal boasts of his emotions
his grandeur and remains vivid
authority
The phrase king of
10 my name is Ozymandias, king of kings: The statue's
kings suggests his surroundings are
perceived superiority empty,
over other rulers 11 Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' emphasizing the
absence of
The command to
Look on my works, Ozymandias'
ye mMighty, and once-great
despair! is a challenge works
to admire his The ruins of the
achievements and statue lie in a
feel overwhelmed by
their greatness
12 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay vast, desolate
landscape
However, the irony The phrase
lies in the contrast colossal wreck
between the 13 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, highlights the
arrogance of fallen grandeur
Ozymandias' words and ruin
and the reality of his
empire's complete
14 The lone and level sands stretch far away. The endless, flat
desert sands
decay and oblivion symbolize the
erasure of
Ozymandias'
legacy
,Ozymandias of Egypt Percy Bysshe 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 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.
, In the poem, the bulk of the narrative is the
speaker's dictation or transcription of his
conversation with an anonymous 'traveller'.
The context for this conversation is set out
in the first line of the poem. In this line, we
learn that the traveller comes from an
'antique land', which suggests that the land
1. I met a traveller from an antique land has historical importance. We can surmise
from the title of the poem that the
traveller has come from Egypt, and this
appears to be confirmed when he describes
the location in which he was as a 'desert'.
While many readers assume the traveller to
be male and European based on the quality
of his English diction and the fact that most
lone international travellers in the 1800s are
likely to have been male, it is perhaps worth
noting that this is never stated explicitly in
the verse. The first line also tells us that the
conversation has already happened, because
it is written in the past tense
In the second line of the poem, the reader
finds him or herself in the middle of the
conversation, as the traveller describes the
statue of 'stone' he came across during his
journey. The description has both a literal
2. Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs and symbolic meaning. Literally, the traveller
of stone describes the decayed state of the statue he
encountered. Symbolically, the ruined statue
represents both the fate of the Pharaoh
and his empire and, on a larger scale, the
state of all despots whose hubris blinds
them to their own mortality and fallibility.
The traveller begins by describing 'two vast
and trunkless legs of stone' . Literally, the
adjective 'vast' describes the limbs as huge
and strong, while, symbolically it refers to
the strength and size of the Egyptian
3. Stand in the desert. Near them on the empire under the pharaoh's rule. The
sand, adjective 'vast' is juxtaposed with the
adjective 'trunkless', though, which suggests
that the statue is missing its torso, also
known as the trunk, and is therefore broken
in half. Without a body, the powerful legs
are effectively rendered useless This is the
first suggestion of what the rest of the
poem reveals: that the statue represents an
empire and power that has long since
collapsed.