The poem describes what happens to powerful people and
animals after they die. It seeks to show that time reduces all great things of
history into something insignificant. In other words, the poet shows how
greatness continues only for a short time by representing several instances in
the poem. The tusks of mastodons that clashed in the war have now become the
playthings. The sword of Charlemagne the Just which devasted several emperors has
now used. People who used to fear with the hug of grizzly bear now sit
comfortably on its fun. Similarly, the powerful general Great Caesar is
confined to the shelf.
=> He, the writer knows that writing poems
stands for nothing but he is not stopping it which is ironical about the poem.
Summary of On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness best poem
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