April 14, 2006

Ozymandias

- by 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

stamp'd on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock'd 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.

(Hat tip to thereisnospoon, whose diary inspired me to post this reflection on arrogance.)