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.’ |