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Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1818
Ozymandias
The full text of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, what it means in plain words, and its best lines as pictures you can download and share.
- Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Published
- 1818
- First line
- I met a traveller from an antique land
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.”
Best lines
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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.
Meaning and summary
A traveller describes a ruined statue in the desert: two huge legs without a body, and beside them a broken face whose frown and sneer show a proud, cruel ruler. On the pedestal, the king boasts that the mighty should look at his works and despair.
But nothing else remains: only empty sand stretching in every direction. The boast has turned against itself. Power and pride do not last; time wears every empire down.
Form
A sonnet of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, with an unusual rhyme scheme that mixes the Petrarchan and Shakespearean patterns.
About the poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), an English Romantic poet, wrote it in 1817 in a friendly contest with Horace Smith; it was published in January 1818. Ozymandias is the Greek name of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II.
Poems
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Questions
About the poem
What is the message of Ozymandias?
That power and pride do not last: time destroys even the greatest rulers and their works.
Who was Ozymandias?
The Greek name for Ramesses II, a pharaoh of ancient Egypt.
What is the irony in the poem?
The king tells the mighty to despair at his works, but nothing of them remains except sand.