Read the following poem and answer questions
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.
What is the poem mainly about?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → an ancient and cruel ruler’s statue destroyed by the effects of time
The poem tells of a huge statue of a proud king.
- Now only its legs stand. Its broken face lies in the sand.
- The poem ends with “Nothing beside remains” and talks of its “decay”. Decay means slowly falling apart over a long time.
- So the poem is about how time has ruined the statue of a great and cruel ruler.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: a lost traveller who finds safety in the ruins of a statue — Incorrect. Not mentioned: the traveller is not lost. He only tells the speaker what he saw in the desert.
Option 2: a pharaoh who meets a traveller in the middle of nowhere — Incorrect. Misread: a pharaoh is a king of old Egypt. The king does not meet anyone. The speaker meets the traveller, and the king is only a broken statue.
Option 4: a poet who finds a pedestal that used to belong to a great king — Incorrect. Wrong link: the speaker did not find the pedestal. He only heard about it from the traveller, “I met a traveller from an antique land”.