Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley - Poetry: The Best Words in the Best Order - #BlogchatterA2ZChallenge2021

 OZYMANDIAS

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

                                                                       Goodreads

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!

                                                                        Behance

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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The Poet: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

Shelley was one of the best known of the Romantic poets, loved for the themes in his poetry, such as a love of nature, ideal love, brooding melancholy, the freedom of the imagination and spirit and the like. His literary treasure trove is remarkable even though, sadly, he drowned at the young age of 29. His contemporaries were luminaries like Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt and Thomas Love Peacock. His writings won the admiration of people like Mahatma Gandhi, Karl Marx and Bernard Shaw. Shelley is best known for his poems like 'Ode to the West Wind', 'To a Skylark' and 'Ozymandias'.

'Ozymandias' refers to Ramses II, the Egyptian Pharaoh who ruled with an iron hand in the 13th century BC. Three voices are heard in the poem - those of the poet, the traveller and Ozymandias himself. The poem is written in the form of a Petrarchan sonnet. 

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The traveller tells the poet about two giant legs that stand in the desert, without a torso.  Alongside on the sand, half buried, lies a stone head that is damaged. There is a frown and a sneer on the face, so well read by the sculptor. These expressions prove the arrogance of the ruler who took more from the people he ruled over than he gave. 

On the pedestal, an inscription reveals the name of Ozymandias and his boastful request to the Mighty, the rulers of the world, to look upon his architectural achievements and despair of ever emulating them. 

These words are ironic, because as one looks around, there is nothing left of those achievements. The huge statue, ruined beyond repair, is termed as a colossal Wreck. It lies, half buried, in the lonely and level sands that stretch for miles around.

Shelley mocks at the boastfulness of the erstwhile powerful monarch who tyrannizes his subjects. Over time, tyranny and boasts come to an empty end, just as the giant statue that now lies in ruins, a travesty of its past glory.

                                                                 Poetry Foundation

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