Poems!

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.

I read this with my two sections--once in conjunction with Hobbes, and once in conjunction with Locke. It worked a little better when the children had more freshly been thinking about Hobbes. In regard to Hobbes, the kids suggested that the poem is anti-Hobbesian insofar as you may return to a natural state after absolutist rule--that the poem shows us that material goods don't matter, finally, and that the relentless pursuit of power leads to nothing. They also note that the subjects of the sovereign are gone together with his works. Although they did point out that Hobbes would agree with Shelley here in seeing pride as a poor motivation. In regard to Locke, the kids saw the poem as anti-absolutism--Locke might read this poem and suggest that a limited government would've helped.