Ozmandias

by

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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 whose 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 Ozmandias, 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.