Ozymandias King of Kings

Inspired by the poem of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
It is appropriate, then, that 'Ozymandias' – one of his most famous poems – is a warning about the arrogance of great leaders. The poem is thought to have been inspired by a gigantic statue of Rameses II that was bought for the British Museum by the Italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni.

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792 – 1822
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.”