10/19/2014

Ozymandias By Percy Bysshe Shelley

Many of the later temples of the Egyptian kings (2000-1800 BC) are found on the Western Bank of the Nile at Thebes. The most imposing of all in some respects is the Ramesseum, where the huge granite colossus of Ramses II is found, which Diodorus knew as the statue of Osymandyas. This name is a late corruption of Ramses II's throne-name, User-maat-Rà, pronounced Ûsimare. This is the statue to which Shelley refers in the poem.


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.”

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