The first stanza involves a man preoccupied with the frozen pictures around an urn. He muses about how the urn can tell a story of history. He wonders at a picture of a group of men chasing after a group of women. Is this a mad chase? Is this a sexual erotic chase? Stanza four describes a group of villagers leading a heifer to a slaughter, most probably a sacrifice. In each stanza the speaker undergoes a process to understand the urn. Is it telling a story or a parable? He is fascinated with time eternally standing still on the urn yet his world keeps progressing, ever changing and ageing.