Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VII. Descriptive: Narrative. 1904. | | | | Descriptive Poems: III. Places | | Ozymandias of Egypt | | Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) |
| | | 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 | 5 |
| Tell that its sculptor well those passions read | |
| Which yet survive, stamped on those 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: | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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