I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert.
Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The rhythm of the opening lines, “Half a league, half a league, / Half a league onward,” creates a relentless beat which is continued throughout the poem.

This rhythm echoes the sound and pace of the horses’ hooves whilst reflecting the Light Brigade’s gallop into battle on horseback.

Tennyson uses a ‘falling rhythm’. This means that the stress is on the first beat of each metrical unit, and then weakens for the rest of the length of the meter.

The use of falling rhythm is appropriate as The Charge of the Light Brigade focuses on the devastating fall of the army in this particular battle.