NCERT Textbook - Ozymandias | Literature Reader Class 10 PDF Download

 Page 1


CBSE
10 10
UNIT UNIT
Poetry
P.4    Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley 
1. Look at the picture given below.
While on a sight-seeing tour to an old and mysterious country far away from 
home, you saw this statue. Discuss with your partner what this picture tells you 
about the people, the place and the ruler. 
Note down your ideas in the web-chart.
106
The place: sand, desert, 
………………………………
The ruler must have been 
………………………………….
The statue: broken, face is 
………………………………….
The people: …………………… 
.………………………………....
My Impressions
AglaSem Schools
Page 2


CBSE
10 10
UNIT UNIT
Poetry
P.4    Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley 
1. Look at the picture given below.
While on a sight-seeing tour to an old and mysterious country far away from 
home, you saw this statue. Discuss with your partner what this picture tells you 
about the people, the place and the ruler. 
Note down your ideas in the web-chart.
106
The place: sand, desert, 
………………………………
The ruler must have been 
………………………………….
The statue: broken, face is 
………………………………….
The people: …………………… 
.………………………………....
My Impressions
AglaSem Schools
CBSE
Poetry
107
2. Write a letter to your friend about the sight you saw and your impression of it.
3. Now read the poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land 
1
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
2
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
3
5 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
4
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
5
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: 
10 "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 
       Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" 
6
       Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
       Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
       The lone and level sands stretch far away. 
About the Poet
The son of a Rich Tory Squire, Percy Bysshe Shelley was educated at 
Eton and then sent to Oxford. Shelley came under the influence of 
revolutionary ideas of the English philosopher, William Godwin, 
whose daughter, Mary Godwin he ultimately married. In 1818, Shelley 
left for Italy; he drowned in the Bay of Spezia in 1822.
4. Answer the following questions by ticking the correct  options.
(a) The poem is set in ____________________________________________
(i) the wilderness
(ii) an ancient land 
(iii) a palace 
1 trunkless:  without the upper body (the main part of the body of a human being or an animal, 
excluding the head, neck, and limbs)
2 visage:  face 
3 sneer:  facial expression of scorn or hostility in which the upper lip may be raised
4 read:  interpreted 
5 stamped: sculpted 
6 beside:  else
AglaSem Schools