“Ozymandias” is a sonnet written by Percy Bysshe Shelley and first published in 1818. The poem is a meditation on the transience of power and the inevitable decline of even the most powerful rulers.
The poem begins with a description of a “vast and trunkless” statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Ozymandias, which has been left to decay in the desert. The narrator describes the inscription on the statue’s pedestal, which boasts of the pharaoh’s great power and achievements:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
However, the poem takes a darker turn in its final lines, as the narrator describes the empty and lifeless desert surrounding the statue, and suggests that the pharaoh’s legacy has been erased by the passage of time and the forces of nature:
“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
The poem is often seen as a commentary on the impermanence of power and the futility of human efforts to achieve immortality. It is also celebrated for its use of vivid and evocative imagery, and its powerful and thought-provoking message.
POEM:-
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.”
