Ozymandias

Ozymandias

by 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.

In sixth grade, I was lucky enough to have Mrs. Taliaferro as my English teacher. Under her expert guidence, we studied and memorized this Shelley poem. So, when I found myself in Luxor, the Brearley girl in me couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit the statue that (supposedly) inspired the poem. My friend Ruth and I even had a dramatic reading of the poem while overlooking it.

This is taken from the opposite direction as the picture above. Here, you can see what remains of his head and torso.


While there are no "trunkless legs" to be seen, both of his feet remain. This is me standing on the one that you can see in the top picture. Imagine how big the statue once was!