Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.

The Ozymandias Colossus¹

Draft of Ozymandias (above) with transcript(below)²

1817 fair copy

First Publication³

1819 Publication⁴

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References and Interpretations

• An introduction to ‘Ozymandias’ – Discovering Literature: Romantics & Victorians, The British Library (accessed June 22, 2019)
• Wikipedia (accessed June 22, 2019)
• Poetry Foundation
• sparknotes
• New York Public Library

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1. The Ozymandias Colossus – Image on Flickr by Christopher Michel; Some rights reserved
2. 1817 draft of Ozymandias – Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK
3. 11 January 1818 issue of The Examiner
4. Shelley’s collection Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems (1819)
   

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