Both Ozymandias and As I Walked Out One Evening can be reduced to the metaphor that “Time is the ultimate conqueror”. Ozymandias develops this theme through 14 lines of irony, while Auden uses much simpler syntax and 15 quatrains to do this. Ozymandias exploits verbose and stilted diction to develop the themes of evaporating arrogance, permanence of art, and desolate setting. Alternatively, “One Evening” refers to the futility of love to portray Time’s devastating capabilities. It is interesting that Ozymandias begins my describing a traveler from a vast desert wasteland, whereas Auden places the reader in a busy city where people are packing the streets, just like wheat that blooms when ready for harvest. Both poems conclude with Natural Time being eternal, warning the reader the nothing grand in life endures except for nature.
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