Happiness

The other day a friend of mine said he read an article about How To Make Money. Number 11, apparently, was Don't Be An English Or Art Major.

So I said that I read an article called How To Give A Rat's Rear End Whether You Make Money or Not, and Number 1 was Don't Be An English Or Art Major.

I further said I read an Article called How To Be Fulfilled and Happy With Your Station in Life Almost No Matter Where You Are, and Number 1 was BE an English or Art Major.

In all of these, Music and Theater majors should have been included, but we can assume they fall under the general heading of Art.

The two articles I claimed I had read were not real articles. They were lies. But they were lies that were perfectly true, which is a concept an English or Art or Music or Theater Major would Understand.

Hey Look, I Can Write About My Dreams

This one I had while in Door County, and it took place in Door County. I knew this, even though none of the actual locations are there. First I was at a restaurant that was I Love Funky's combined with various small restaurants I've been to combined with every used bookstore. But there weren't many books--you had to climb a step ladder to get to a shelf in a closet to get at them.

Then I was walking up the back steps at BLC, and the FedEx guy was there, with a package, trying to get someone to sign for it. This, I think, was a leftover from my work-study job this past year, for which I (among other things) signed for a lot of packages. The FedEx guy seemed to recognize me, and he said, "The only difference is, you're a civilian now," but he let me sign anyway.

Then he started to run away and I asked why he was running. Then I realized the package I had signed for and was still holding was emitting a ticking sound. The FedEx guy called back, "A ticking package? In a building full of illegals?"

So then I dropped the package and started running but he stopped and stared back at the building and said, "Wait... it's not a bomb." I tackled him just as the place exploded. "It's always a bomb," I said. "Yeah, don't get smart," he said, as we both picked ourselves up. Then instead of the FedEx guy he was a half-Native American woman, and I was either Matt Damon or Ben Afleck, and we were both cops and this whole thing was actually the beginning of a movie about two wise-cracking cops who investigate attacks on illegal immigrants, which sounds like a pretty marketable concept these days, if you ask me. The only person to die in the bomb blast was either Will Smith or Matt Damon, perhaps depending on who I actually was.

The second dream is from the night before last. Heidi and Tarja were moving out of their parents' house and into a tree house which had several levels. They were happily showing a camera crew around. But the camera crew, rather than being inside the house, was hovering outside its windows.

There was a commentary track running over the dream as well, like on a DVD. I kept being confused as to whether to pay attention to what Heidi and Tarja were saying or to the commentary track, which I was finding very interesting because it was all about how they got the camera shots and stuff. The only line I actually remember is, "We got this shot by hanging from the bellies of spider-monkeys."

Psychoanalyze away.

Personal Library

Since this is apparently a thing now, and because I have too much time on my hands not working, I have counted up my personal library. I have counted by volume, rather than by title. These are only the books that are currently in my room--Zeke has at least a dozen on semi-permanent loan, there are a couple dozen or so loaned farther afield, and I have at least a couple dozen (mostly literature) stored at school.

Current total: 556

Contemporary Fantasy/SF: 145
Literature/Classics: 133
Old (Pre-Tolkien) Fantasy: 40
Contemporary/Genre Fiction: 26
Philosophy: 16
History: 75
Writing/Lit. Crit.: 14
Foreign Language: 10
Irish: 13
Film: 3
Miscellaneous: 9
Psychology: 5
Mad Magazine Books: 27
Biographies: 5
Mark Twain (by and about): 35

Of these, I've read perhaps 150, maybe closer to 200.

New Plan

And I'm back in Madison, looking (rather unsuccessfully) for another job. The story isn't that exciting. Invitation to visit remains open, however.

Summer!

Well, the end of this school year seems considerably less climactic than the end of the last one. Though, I didn't let myself get rushed into a relationship I didn't ultimately want this year, so I suppose there are always trade-offs.

The main point of this post is to talk about my summer plans. That is, it is a pre-emptive excuse post for not blogging all summer.

I got a job as a cook at a restaurant up in Door County, WI, which for those who don't know is the "thumb" of Wisconsin, the bit of a peninsula jutting into Lake Michigan. It's a beautiful place, and I'm happy to be going there. I will miss people around Madison, by which I largely mean my family and the Book Klub.

I may also miss the internet, for what with my own sad computer situation (having a crappy old laptop which in theory has internet capabilities but in practice is a piece of crap), I will probably end up using a lot of library computers, and librarians watch you like hawks to make sure you don't overstay your time.

Which means, peoples, for all of you to email me and Facebook me! Random messages, at random times, whenever you feel like it! Seriously! You know how bad I am at keeping in touch when I have regular computer access; well, think of me without it.

Also, you can call me on my cell phone. If you don't have my number and want it, tell me.

That's about it. Have a good summer, all. If anyone makes it up toward Door County, look me up. Seriously.

Absurdism And Other Things

These are a lot of random, semi-connected thoughts I've been having lately, that I'm trying to connect. Hold on tight.

Jazz and Absurdism are my first thoughts.

I began reading the book Blue Like Jazz the other day. It's a questing, poetic book about Christian spirituality in the postmodern world. The opening Author's Note reads like this:

I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxaphone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.

I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened.

I'm going to leave that there, hanging a bit awkwardly, for a bit before I return to it.

Absurdism. It's on my mind because here at Bethany we recently had our Director's Showcase. Everyone in the (Theatre) Directing class takes a scene from a play, recruits actors, and directs said scene, putting it on at this Showcase. This time the theme was unrealism, which mainly translated into Absurdism. I was in three different scenes, two from plays by Eugene Ionesco, who perhaps most famously wrote Rhinocerous. One of these scenes was from The Bald Soprano, which is subtitled an "Anti-play." It is basically full of nonsense dialogue:

"I can buy an egg for my brother, but you can't buy Ireland for your grandfather."
"One walks on his feet, but one heats with electricity or coal."
"One can sit on a chair, when the chair doesn't have any."
"One must always think of everything."

And so forth. This is typical absurdism. It is very existential, often; it reflects on a modern world and a modern experience that is, well, absurd. I'm sure that, were I younger, I would fail to like absurdism, perhaps because it doesn't resolve.

There is a type of person I have encountered often. They dislike jazz, absurdism, stories or movies that don't have an Aristotelian climactic structure. They almost always dislike Napoleon Dynamite. Usually they object to experimental art of any kind. The objection is often along these lines:

"It doesn't make sense."
"It doesn't have a point."
"It's ridiculous."

I don't mean to stereotype, but it's true when I say I've met many people whose opinions and expressions in these matters can fit exactly over one another, like a one-size-fits-all pair of spandex pants. And maybe what I'm describing is simply people who are "normal," although I object to the idea of there being a truly, deeply "normal" person in existence.

But wait. While it's implied in their judgments, the above-typified "normal" people have said nothing about a crucial topic: Truth. These people seem to be saying that all this lack of resolution is wrong, which implies a moral judgment as to their truth. But, perhaps because they don't think of it, our amateur critics don't say it.

In the second chapter of Reading Like A Writer, Francine Prose quotes Hemingway's method of writing fiction:

Sometimes when I was started on a new story and I could not get going... I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.

She expressed confusion over his use of the word "truth" as regards obviously fictional writing, saying that perhaps he has made the common mistake of confusing truth with beauty. I could not object more. There is all kinds of truth to be found in fiction, frequently more and deeper truth than can be found in non-fiction or in "real life." Dreams are only rarely beautiful, but they are always on some level true.

Another thing that "normal" people, even "normal" literary-minded people, often shun and run from is that oft-derided branch of literature known as Fantasy. Before its ascent in popularity beginning in the 30s Pulp magazines, the Victorians (who in literary taste if not in morality are the analogues of our currently-defined "normal" person) shunned fantasy and relegated it to the nursery, the children's book, and the seamy shops which the sort of person who has never outgrown his crutches of infantilism and substance abuse might frequent.

Perhaps not coincidentally, something that has often struck me about old fantasy (that is, fantasy before and up to Tolkien) is its often searing truth. A perfect example comes from Cabell's Jurgen:

For now had come toward them, walking together in the dawn, a handsome boy and girl. And the girl was incredibly beautiful, because everybody in the garden saw her with the vision of the boy who was with her.

This is not only beautiful, but also, in a poetic-device-riddled way, very true.

Or, in a further passage from the same book. The Centuar is speaking to Jurgen about the garden they are in, The Garden Between Dawn and Sunrise:

"For in this garden," said the Centaur, "each man that ever lived has sojourned for a little while, with no company save his illusions. I must tell you again that in this garden are encountered none but imaginary creatures. And stalwart persons take their hour of recreation here, and go hence unaccompanied, to become aldermen and respected merchants and bishops, and to be admired as captains upon prancing horses, or even as kings upon tall thrones; each in his station thinking not at all of the garden ever any more. But now and then come timid persons, Jurgen, who fear to leave this garden without an escort: so these must need go hence with one or another imaginary creature, to guide them about alleys and by-paths, because imaginary creatures find little nourishment in the public highways, and shun them..."

This passage, though beautifully written, is emphatically not beautiful. It is sad, it is tearful, it is depressing, perhaps somewhat cynical. It is also very, very true. Again, this is truth in the way a poem is true, or a dream.

Lud-in-the-Mist, another forgotten and shunned fantasy classic, contains statements even less poetic and even more bald in their truth.

...though, indeed, it is never safe to classify the souls of one's neighbors; one is apt, in the long run, to be proved a fool. You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwittingly giving you for a portrait--a portrait that, probably, when you or he die, will still be unfinished. And, though this is an absorbing pursuit, nevertheless, the painters are apt to end pessimists. For however handsome and merry may be the face, however rich may be the background, in the first rough sketch of each portrait, yet with every added stroke of the brush, with every tiny readjustment of the "values," with every modification of the chiaroscuro, the eyes looking out at you grow more disquieting. And, finally, it is your own face that you are staring at in terror, as in a mirror by candle-light, when all the house is still.

What is my point here? Is it that jazz is true, that Absurdism, with all its postmodern despair, is true too?

Well, what if, as our increasingly theoretical amateur critic implies, the opposite is so? What if all music should resolve, all stories should makes sense, dialogue following itself like a pack of wolves on a scent or a regiment of soldiers marching in step? If this is a reflection of truth, it seems to me, then life should make perfect sense. Economic and political systems that make sense should work. Theories that seem airtight should always prove to be true. Drawing should be as simple as tracing the lines one sees. People should be nice to one another. Relationships should be tit-for-tat, easy to screw up, but easy to succeed at. Life should be simple and easy to figure out.

Is any of this the case? Of course not. The world is not simple. The world doesn't make sense. So why should art have to make sense? Why should art have to resolve? Why should we even expect it to? I can come up with smug platitudes to answer these, but they taste to me of the bitterest kind of sophistry and closed thinking.

Perhaps art should be an escape, and often it is. Often it takes the stuff of real life, and creates a miniature world which looks very much like real life, but which makes sense, which resolves, in which everything that is begun ends, and everything that is started finishes in one way or another. But this seems to me a cheap cop-out; good art, even good popular escapist art, should be true; for art is one of the deepest mysteries. Even an escape from real life should contain in it truth about that life. And it is possible to unite the two.

Take, for example, Lord of the Rings. I wish I had my very beat-up paperback copy of the Trilogy with me; for nostalgic purposes, and because I could find one of the many, many very true passages within it and quote it here. Many of my readers will have their own copies. I challenge you to open any volume and read for twenty pages without encountering some profound truth about life, the universe, and everything.

The movies are this way, too, to an extent. They don't always have the grandeur of Tolkien's language or quite the profundity of his thought, but they capture the spirit of the books extremely well.

And this is a trilogy of books and especially of movies that my theoretical amateur critic would distinctly love, for many and probably most of the people I've experienced to make this theoretical straw man do love the books and/or the movies.

There are a lot of ways, it seems to me, that these thoughts could relate to God. But it is getting late, and I have been blathering on for far too long anyway. I will leave the reader to make the reader's own connections.

Oh, Love.

Sometimes I wish I could just withdraw from everything, and not have to love anyone, and not have to be hurt when they are; and not have anyone love me, and therefore not have them miss me or worry about me or be hurt if I am. I wish the second clause much more than the first.

But it is impossible and, in the truth of things, undesirable: a withdrawn heart, to paraphrase Lewis, is one that will become a cold and empty and lifeless place. But oh, sometimes it hurts to love.

The Roaring 20's

I've been doing research on silent films lately, for various projects and personal interest. I ran across some old movie magazines, and I was struck by how down-to-earth both the stars and the writing were. Of course there's some sensationalism and hyperbole, but it's nothing compared to the splashy sensationalism of movie magazines these days. Here's an example from an interview with Kathlyn Williams, who starred in adventure serials in which she often escaped from wild animals.

"And there are always little accidents that bring unexpected crises. One day a leopard went 'bad' and started for me. There was plenty of room for me to run--but just before I reached the safety cage, I tripped and fell. In my scalp today are ten claw marks where the leopard 'got home' before I was dragged to safety, and in my mind the thought of what might have happened had the attendant keepers been less adept at my rescue.

"Now I know you're sure to ask the question--so let me say right now that I'm deathly afraid of a mouse! I've never been afraid of big animals because I have always liked them--and when you like them they return your friendship--but little crawling things--ugh!"

Certainly Kathlyn Williams in appearance is truly feminine. Modishly slender and with a grace of movement that has long been a characteristic of her stage and screen work, Miss Williams today presides graciously over a beautiful hill-top home that overlooks all of Los Angeles, and as one wanders through rooms decorated in perfect taste and abounding in those alluring touches which are so truly feminine--it is hard to believe that the fair mistress of this "home" home has perhaps faced death more often than any other living woman; or at any rate, that she has gone through such experiences and remained just the same sweet representative of the gentler sex.

(MOVIE WEEKLY, July 9, 1921; accessed at: http://www.public.asu.edu/~ialong/Taylor48.txt)

EDIT 4/24: Another sentence I just had to share, regarding something said by an expert movie investor:

This statement is cryptogrammatic to the most informed of us; to the man just casually interested in the business side of motion pictures it is absolutely befogging.

(Paul H. Davis, "Investing in the Movies," Part One, Photoplay Magazine, August 1915, pages 55-58. Accessed at: http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/32_inv_1.htm)

I just love the word choice. I'm not saying it's good writing, but it's definitely more sparkly than modern journalism will give us.

Is Pro-Choice Coercive?

[For lack of anything better, I have fallen back on my old habit of prostituting class writing for blog material. This was an event story for Journalism class. This is the expanded version, that didn't have to limit itself to 750 words.]

Is pro-choice rhetoric coercive? Does the viewpoint that claims to protect an individual’s right to choose actually limit choice and freedom?

These were the questions asked by Dr. Ryan MacPherson, professor of history and science at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, MN. His lecture on Thursday night was entitled, “The Coercive Reality Behind Pro-Choice Rhetoric: Identifying what “Popular Sovereignty,” “Reproductive Freedom,” “Death With Dignity,” and “Marriage Equality” Demand from Persons Who Disagree.”

The event drew a crowd of college students and professors, with a few outsiders present.

Dr. MacPherson began by announcing that his lecture would last 75 minutes, and requesting that the audience stay for the whole event. “There is a happy ending,” he said. “And I want you to be here for that.”

As his prologue, MacPherson presented the case of the “Popular Sovereignty” argument, used by pro-slave factions before the Civil War. The argument was that territories should be free to choose for themselves whether they would be slave territories or free.

In practice, the “popular sovereignty” laws ended up coercing abolitionists into supporting the very practice they found wrong and morally repugnant.

To sum up the situation, MacPherson quoted Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address of 1860. “What will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow convince them that we do let them alone… We must cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right… We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.”

Dr. MacPherson then set out to argue that homosexuality, abortion and physician-assisted suicide cannot exist in American society unless many liberties are restricted.

He started with abortion. Pro-abortion rhetoric originally claimed, according to him, that laws legalizing abortion were not asking anyone to endorse abortion, but to uphold a woman’s right to freedom of choice.

However, these laws quickly turned into doctors being coerced into offering and even strongly supporting the option of having an abortion to their patients. In 2007 a Florida couple successfully sued their doctor for a “wrongful birth,” claiming that if they had known they could get an abortion, they would have.

MacPherson cited other examples, including the removal of the Conscience Clause from the Freedom of Choice Act. This removal would force health care workers against their objections to participate in abortions.

“What started as one woman’s right to choose turned into a coercive reality for everyone.”

He concluded by quoting the Cooper’s Union Address, changing “slavery” to “abortion.”

Parts 2 and 3 of the lecture made similar arguments about physician-assisted suicide and homosexual rights. He similarly quoted the Cooper’s Union Address to conclude each of these arguments.

The physician-assisted suicide laws that have been passed have been coercive in several ways, MacPherson said. The law in Oregon requires physicians to be dishonest, claiming on death certificates that the death was from natural causes. It also coerces doctors who have moral objections into helping administer lethal drugs.

“The law has so exalted a patient’s right to die that doctors are forbidden from their goal of promoting life.”

The Homosexual Rights agenda is similarly coercive, MacPherson claimed. He cited examples of college clubs that were not allowed to have policies excluding members on the basis of their sexuality.

“[The clubs’] idea of equal rights was that the school would allow groups on both sides of an issue to be exclusive. The school’s idea was that everyone had to allow anyone to become a member, even those who disagreed.”

But ultimately, MacPherson said, it is not a matter of force against coercion. The arguments against the pro-choice position are just as coercive.

“It’s a matter of which values ought the coercive force of government to promote and support?”

He reiterated the idea that the values behind abortion, assisted suicide, and homosexuality were unnatural. He said they could not exist without laws in place forcing them on society.

Governments, MacPherson said, should promote those things that are natural to mankind.

He further encouraged those who rejected the “pro-choice” agenda to embrace the “pro-life” agenda—and more, to embrace the compassion that comes with it.

“This means not only encouraging a woman not to have an abortion, but taking her in, clothing her, feeding her, comforting her, no matter who she is.”

After the lecture, MacPherson answered questions. One student asked whether someone who was pro-life could use the Pro-Choice rhetoric to his or her own advantage. For example, "choosing" not to participate in an abortion despite being a healthcare worker.

Dr. MacPherson said that the counterargument would be to bring up "equal distribution," the idea that services MUST be available to everyone, no matter their social class or position. (The idea being that our health care worker in this case would be coerced into helping with the abortion because the equal distribution laws would require it.)

Ultimately, Dr. MacPherson said, what will win people and help people and save people is not our rhetoric. It is our love. The pro-life lifestyle affirms the sanctity of marriage, the sacred nature of life, and the blessedness of parenthood. But ultimately, it is the love of Christ that wins souls.

Students were challenged and impressed by the lecture.

"I'm just impressed every time I hear him talk," said Heidi M.

"I was glad he mentioned that Pro-Life is also coercive," said Sarah R. "I was trying to find a way to bring that up, but then he did."

OCD Broken?

I just read "The Lies of Locke Lamora," which was a fun book, sort of an urban epic fantasy with elements of Ocean's 11. I have the sequel, however, and I have not yet read it. I have, in fact, read other things since finishing the first. I mentioned a while ago that I seem to have this recent OCD about finishing series when I start them. I wonder if it's broken now. Of course, it could just be that while Lynch tells an excellent story, he uses the fairly generic modern epic fantasy style, and 800 pages of that is enough for a while. Probably once I start "The Book of the Long Sun" I'll have to read all of it.

The Ritual Notes

I recently completed writing a cycle of short stories, which for now is simply called "The Ritual Cycle." It is essentially a novel in the form of a collection of short stories; that is, most or all of these stories could, with little or no tweaking, stand on their own, but taken together there is enough continuity, development, and story arc to make a coherent novel. The thing is 80,900 words long, and took me almost three years to write. I finished it a couple weekends ago, writing the last 23,000 words in a five-day blitz prompted by the fact that 1. I was sick of writing the bloody thing and B. the characters and I were starting to have long in-depth conversations and arguments, something which is at least lessened with this ending.

The Cycle begins at the end: the opening story, "The Ritual," is about the reunion of nine off-beat teenagers (five are seniors in high school, two are juniors, one a sophomore, one a college freshman). They had gone through three years of high school together, but split up because their families moved away in different directions. The story is about their reunion, and about all the rituals that both lighten and darken their lives.

The second story goes back to the beginning, the start of the majority of the characters' ninth grade, in which some of them get into several fights. The rest of the novel leap-frogs its way through the years up until the same reunion which opens it.

Such is the bare outline; the spirit of the cycle itself is hard to explain. It's written rather impressionistically, nine solid characters in a world that shifts ever so slightly-it doesn't contradict itself, usually, but it feels like it does. The characters, to quote a cliche, march to the beat of their own drummer; except the drummer is actually a bagpiper, and he's drunk, and he quotes T.S. Eliot.

Terry Pratchett says not to base characters on people you know, but on types of people you know, and this is what I've done here--these living, breathing, unique, extremely idiosyncratic characters are all types of people I've known. I know they're all real, because I've met them all; though about 15 or 20 people were blent to make up these nine.

As a further note, one of the stories contains some of my favorite just-for-the-hell-of-it writing I've ever done: a sentence that's 573 words long, one that's 563 words (both grammatically correct), and one that's 407 words long WITHOUT PUNCTUATION (except the ending period).

I think this is the most publishable thing I've written so far, and I intend to send it off to... someone. Well, probably a lot of someones. Currently my self-appointed editor-in-residence (my roommate) is going through it with a red pen, and once I have thoroughly argued with all of his edits I will be requesting readers. There are a few people I have specifically in mind, but if you, gentle reader, want to be on the list, contact me in whatever way you like and I will sign you up. If you can't wait and want to see the earlier less pretty draft, let me know about that and I'll send you one.

I'm going to leave with a few quotes randomly selected from my recently finished work, just for fun.
--

And there she was.
He thought it would be over by now, a buried throb, but at the sight of the girl in the blue dress, her hair done up and her face split with a smile like a ray of sunlight—the hurricane formed again in his soul. Goddesses don’t die that easily.


“Thing I noticed about pirates,” Joseph said. “They don’t have great love lives. Oh, sure, all the girls want them. But as for finding one and sticking with her—it just doesn’t work.”
Owen shrugged. “You always make sacrifices.”
“Not virgins, I hope.” Lily came around the corner of the building.
Owen laughed. “Not this time.”


He had hit the Snooze button on his alarm clock, apparently, and apparently gone back to sleep. The insistent klaxon was enough to get him up, this time. He sat up. He lurched across the room, and a sudden urge took him to shout “Brains!” and tear someone's head open and eat the gray matter inside it. He resisted, however, as no victims presented themselves.


The four of them sauntered down Main Street. A car full of older girls drove past, and they whistled at Owen and Lars and Lars raised his cane in salute and they thought that was just so cute. Lars didn't let them see him roll his eyes. The four boys turned the corner, passing more old wooden buildings whose fronts made them look boxy when in fact their roofs were sloped like anybody's. Joseph imagined they would have cringed if they knew he knew their secret. Another turn and they were behind Main Street. The back, the behind-the-scenes, as always told the truth and the truth was shocking. There were garbage containers back here, entire garbage bins filled with trash bags. Behind the mini-mini-mall was a garbage container filled with bags of old unsold gift items, which acted as foreshadowing to the ultimate fate of the items in the gift shop that did sell.


“What were you guys doing out there?” Lily said.
“Out there?” Owen said.
“Out where?” Lars said.
Lily glared at them. “Out there, outside, running around like maniacs.”
Owen looked at Lars. “Were we doing that?”
“I don't think so,” said Lars.
Lily glared witheringly at both of them.
“Nope,” said Lars, as if coming out of great reflection. “Definitely weren't out there.”
“That's right,” Owen said.
“Definitely not saving the world and all existence from inane creatures out of the deepest pits of Hell.”
They both laughed nervously and Owen gave his brother a look like You're an idiot.

Vanity

The weather today seems to speak of the fall of empires, the ancientness and newness of all things. It puts me in mind of Shelley's "Ozymandias."

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.