The Listeners by Walter de la Mare and Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley: Poems mystery

The Listeners by Walter de la Mare and Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley both immediately convey a sense of mystery as they are set in the past. Ozymandias revisits the very distant past and The Listeners revisits the past in the lifetime of a single man.Shelley uses the technique of a story at heart a story to grow mystery, where de la Mare uses an account. However they both make use of a lone traveller who visits lonely places to evoke a sense of fear, encouraging you to think about what might have happened in these places and that events could have been very sinister.Both poems have the main focus of an isolated bodily structureThat dwelt in the lone signal thenStood listening in the quiet of the moonlight(The Listeners, lines 14 & 15, Walter de la Mare)Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and take sands stretch far away.(Ozymandias, lines 13 & 14, Percy Bysshe Shelley)The poets inject both of these inanimate structures with a sense of humanity, which furthers the mysterious aura surrounding them. Shelley uses a human definition to do thisAnd wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,(Ozymandias, line 5, Percy Bysshe Shelley)Where de la Mare instead uses the spirits of the Listeners to give the house a sense of humanity, as if the house itself is possessed and listening to the travellerAnd he felt in his heart their strangeness,Their stillness answering his cry,(The Listeners, lines 21 & 22, Walter de la Mare)Both poets cleverly use mental imagery to create pictures in our minds. De la Mare uses very detailed and lengthy descriptions, which build mystery and suspense and make you feel as if you are watching the lone travelerKnocking on the moonlit door(The Listeners, line 2, Walter de la Mare)This makes you feel very apprehensive.Shelleys descriptions in Ozymandias are more limited and quite a abrupt, which I think creates mystery because the reader has to use their imagination to picture events clearly.The poems differ at this point be cause in The Listeners, de la Mares setting is full of life, for casing he describes trees, turf, grass and a horse. In contrast to Ozymandias, where Shelley uses bleak descriptions of a setting, which indicates an extremely barren and empty expanse.The Listeners hints at the enduring quality of the spirits who watch in the house. Whereas Ozymandias gives a clear message of the ephemeral nature of the effects of power and pride.The end of each poem has both similarities and differences. Ozymandias has no clear end. there is nothing to sum it up. Shelley has left a gap to use our own imagination. But in The Listeners, de la Mare clearly describes the traveler retreating back to where he had come from. Creating a clear end to the story.The similarities arise at the end of each poem because both the poets use solelyiteration to describe distance, space and quiet. Shelley manages to create a large expanse of space, distance and emptinessThe lone and level sands stretch far away.(Ozy mandias, line 14, Percy Bysshe Shelley)But de la Mare creates a feeling of stillness, quiet and distance withAnd how the silence surged softly backwards,When the plunging hoofs were gone.(The Listeners, lines 35 & 36, Walter de la Mare)By using this alliteration right at the end of the poems and the S sound all the way through, both poets have finished with mystery and quiet foreboding of what might be.I think that both poems are telling a refinement story. They are quite frightening and very mysterious. Out of the two my favourite is the listeners. I prefer this as I think it is a clear story, which make me feel on edge. Where I found Ozymandias too vague and without a clear ending.