The
central theme of Ozymandias (Ozymandias was another name of Ramses the Great,
pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt) is mankind's hubris. All
works of humankind - including power structures and governments - eventually
must pass into history, no matter how permanent they may seem. All earthly
things must pass - “Sic transit gloria mundi” - and.only the eternal
remain.
[Excerpted
[in part] from Wikipedia]
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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And
wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that
its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet
survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand
that mock'd 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.
-
Percy Bysshe Shelley
