Ozymandias

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 Oxymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, Round the decay
Of viet colorassal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY