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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley analysis as one of best English poems for ESL students. Enjoy English literature and improve your English at the same time in this forum.
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.”— By Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley analysis
The speaker recalls having met a traveler “from an antique land,” who told him a story about the ruins of a statue in the desert of his native country. Two vast legs of stone stand without a body, and near them a massive, crumbling stone head lies “half sunk” in the sand. The traveler told the speaker that the frown and “sneer of cold command” on the statue’s face indicate that the sculptor understood well the emotions (or “passions”) of the statue’s subject.
The memory of those emotions survives “stamped” on the lifeless statue, even though both the sculptor and his subject are both now dead. On the pedestal of the statue appear the words, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” But around the decaying ruin of the statue, nothing remains, only the “lone and level sands,” which stretch out around it.
Source: SparkNotes
It seems that Percy Bysshe Shelley was really good at poems, really nice and good and so hard to find the meaning and the point of this poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley reminds us that power and position are not permanent. Even the greatest kings and rulers have perished, and nothing but insignificant remnants has remained from them and their kingdom. This meaningful poem teaches us that arrogance is a dangerous and self-destructive state of mind.
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