Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a celebrated 14-line sonnet about the temporary nature of human power and the never-ending impact of art and nature. In the poem, the speaker meets a traveller who describes two huge stone pillars standing in the desert. It basically talks about the ruined remains of a statue dedicated to Ozymandias. Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the most renowned English Romantic poets and was always praised for his lyrical talent.
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.