"Nothing besides remains...The lone and level sands stretch far away."

[Coexist]

A mirror - arrogance, empire-building and history.

Ozymandius
by: Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler 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 Ozymandius, 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.

[shadowknows69]

1. Damnit Fldem

now I have to go start reading more Shelley. Great post.

[rhiannon55]

2. I've always loved that poem

Thanks for posting it and reminding me that this, too



shall pass away.

[dougkeenan]

3. Shelley understood tyrants ...

... and this poem captures the essence. Great post!

[newyawker99]

4. Hi dougkeenan!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[dougkeenan]

5. More Shelley on the topic ...

... from Queen Mab, hinting at Ozy some five years earlier:

"Even Time, the conqueror, fled thee in his fear;
That hoary giant, who in lonely pride
So long had ruled the world that nations fell
Beneath his silent footstep. Pyramids,
That for millenniums had withstood the tide
Of human things, his storm-breath drove in sand
Across that desert where their stones survived
The name of him whose pride had heaped them there.
Yon monarch, in his solitary pomp,
Was but the mushroom of a summer day,
That his light-wingèd footstep pressed to dust;
Time was the king of earth; all things gave way
Before him but the fixed and virtuous will,
The sacred sympathies of soul and sense,
That mocked his fury and prepared his fall."

(and thanks for the welcome!)