Power of Nature

Ozymandias

Despite the efforts of humans to make a stamp on the earth, nature will always outlast everything:

  • ‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert’
  • ‘on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies’
  • ‘Nothing beside remains.’
  • ‘Round the decay of that colossal wreck’
  • ‘The lone and level sands stretch far away’

Extract from the Prelude

During his journey in a boat, the young boy is forced to realise the awesome power of nature:

  • ‘One summer evening’
  • Small circles glittering idly in the moon’
  • ‘summit of a craggy ridge, The horizon’s utmost boundary’
  • ‘far above Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky’
  • ‘the grim shape Towered up between me and the stars’
  • ‘measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me.’

Exposure

Soldiers faced extreme weather conditions, whilst they were deployed at war.

  • Merciless iced east winds that knife us…’
  • ‘Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles’
  • ‘ait that shudders black with snow’
  • ‘sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew’
  • _‘wind’s nonchalance’ _
  • ‘Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces-‘
  • ‘His frost will fasten on this mud and us’
  • ‘All their eyes are ice’

Storm on the Island

The storm reflects the power of nature and how manipulate the actions of humans:

  • ‘leaves and branches Can raise a chorus in a gale’
  • It blows full Blast’
  • ‘But there are no trees, no natural shelter’
  • ‘You might think that the sea is company’
  • We are bombarded by the empty air’

Bayonet Charge

It is often forgotten that nature is also damaged, during times of conflict:

  • ‘Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge’
  • Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame’
  • ‘mouth wide Open silent, its eyes standing out.’

Poppies

Nature is used as a symbol to communicate deeper meanings and concepts:

  • ‘poppies had already been placed’
  • ‘white cat hairs’
  • ‘released a song bird from its cage’
  • ‘a single dove flew from the pear tree’
  • ‘The dove pulled freely against the sky’

Tissue

Nature is powerful, because it has always existed and will continue long after generations of people:

  • ‘The sun shines through their borderlines’
  • ‘the marks that rivers make’
  • ‘roads, railtracks, mountainfolds’
  • ‘a grand design //with living tissue’
  • ‘turned into your skin’

Kamikaze

Exposure to nature reduces negative emotions and tension. The pilot changes his direction, because nature reminds him of the benefits of living:

  • ‘he must have looked far down at the little fishing boats’
  • ‘green-blue translucent sea’
  • ‘arcing in swathes like a huge flag… in the figure of eight’
  • ‘dark shoals of fishes… swivelled towards the sun’
  • ‘turbulent inrush of breakers’
  • ‘cloud-marked mackerel, black crabs, feathery prawns… whitebait’
  • ‘tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous’