Jump to content

Ozymandias (draft manuscript)

From Wikisource
For other versions of this work, see Ozymandias (Shelley).
Ozymandias (draft manuscript)
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Undated, circa 1817.

4620116Ozymandias (draft manuscript)Percy Bysshe Shelley
Photo of the manuscript.
Photo of the manuscript.
Ozymandias.

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who He said— “two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart... 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, this legend clear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing remains beside. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”