Ozymandias of Egypt
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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 shatter'd 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
those 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.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley Written
in 1817

