StoryTitle("caps", "Ozymandias of Egypt") ?> of Egypt," by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). This sonnet is a rebuke to the insolent pride of kings and empires. It is extremely picturesque. It finds a place here because more elderly scholars of good judgment are pleased with it. I remember an old gray-haired scholar in Chicago who often recited it to his friends merely because it touched his fancy.
PoemStart() ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "I met a traveller from an antique land", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "Who said: \"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "Tell that its sculptor well those passions read", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed;", "") ?> PagePoem(323, "L0", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "And on the pedestal these words appear:", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "The lone and level sands stretch far away;\"", "") ?>