Saturday, April 15, 2006

A new Ozymandias

If you don't know this poem about the ruins of the statue of a once extremely powerful person, it's high time you did. And I have a reason for sharing it with you:

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart....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.

Now go here and see the illustrated version. And weep.

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