Literary Analysis and discussion: Nothing Gold Can Stay

I like this poem because it is humbling to those who don't see things in terms of eternity. In the eternity, nothing we do really matters but in the right here and now, cockyness runs rampant. Here are your "mighty works" if you don't believe me:

I met a traveler 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.

-Ozymandias 
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Mr. G:

Love this poem! Especially the last line -- "the lone and level sands stretch far away." So what is worth doing? Great works? Maintenance? Whatever makes you happy? If all is impermanence, I still wonder, what is worth doing?

By the way, this poem is often copied with "upon" instead of the original "on": "Look on my works ye mighty..."

Me:
 
You're right. Upon screws up the pentameter. I think I'll change it.

I think if all is impermanent, the stress of doing everything perfect is gone. Eternity makes each moment into something not so stressful.