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 Shelly
