The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems of the Romantic Era | Ozymandias

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.
  • the Greek name for Ramses; the Ramses of this poem is probably the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, who is famous for his magnificent building projects. This poem is a sonnet, 14 lines written in iambic pentameter with an odd rhyme scheme: ABAB, ACDC, EDE, FEF.
  • the face
  • a wonderfully ambiguous statement that said to mighty rulers of the time that their works would never be able to rival Ozymandias' and to modern rulers that all things eventually decay and pass into oblivion. Note, however, that the enormous monument to the mighty ruler has itself become a ruin and a shadow of its former glory.