Ozymandias

I met a traveler 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 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 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.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; With Other Poems

London: Hollinger. p. 72 (1876)

This poem is in the public domain.