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 irony in the poem?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Ozymandias thought his works would last for ever, yet all that remains of them is a broken statue in an empty desert.
Irony is when what happens is the opposite of what was expected.
- On the pedestal, the base of the statue, the king boasts, “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” To despair means to lose all hope. He wanted other great kings to see his works and feel small.
- But the next line says, “Nothing beside remains.” Only a broken statue lies in the sand.
- His proud words now point at nothing.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: The traveller who tells the story has never seen the statue himself. — Incorrect. Not mentioned: nothing in the poem says this. The traveller tells of the statue as something he found in the desert. He does not say he heard about it from someone else.
Option 3: The king wanted his people to love him, but the sculptor showed him as cruel. — Incorrect. Misread: the sculptor “well those passions read”. This means he understood the king’s feelings well and carved them truly. The poem says nothing about the king wanting love.
Option 4: The desert sands have kept the statue safe from harm for thousands of years. — Incorrect. Contradicted: the poem speaks of “a shattered visage”. Visage means face, and shattered means broken into pieces. The statue has not been kept safe.