The Poem:

• sonnet (14 lines), iambic pentameter
• rhyme scheme is ababacdcedefef, it has no traditional sonnet form but does structurally divide INTO 8 and 6 of Petrarchan pattern.
• Theme/ tone: nostalgia for the past
• Idea that things change and nothing will stay in its original glory forever.
• Shift in tone at line 12 when the author begins to down play and talk about the wreckage that Ramses great city is now it. (goes FROM praise to mockery)
• The speaker is also mocking the great Ramses II because he built up this huge kingdom on the backs of workers only to have it now in shambles.

• use of imagination
• exotic settings
• nostalgia for the past

It was written as a friendly and informal poetry competition with John Keats in 1817. The poetry topic was Egypt. At the time fragments FROM the empire of several Egyptian kings named...