Ozymandias
The glory of political power soon passes away.
1818
Introduction
Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote this poem in friendly competition with fellow-poet Horace Smith. Ozymandias is an ancient Greek name for Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC).
Ozymandias
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.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
In 1816, just two years before the poem was published, a large fragment of a 13th century BC statue of Ramesses had been brought to Europe, and was eagerly anticipated in London. The statue arrived in London in 1821, and can still be seen at the British Museum.