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 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 collossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Published by Hunt in The Examiner, January, 1818. Reprinted with Rosalind and Helen, 1819. There is a copy amongst the Shelley MSS. at the Bodleian Library.
