Ozymandias Revisited By Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias Revisited

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the great English poets of the Romantic era. In 1818 he wrote a poem of only 14 lines called Ozymandias. Although the message was brief, the irony of a tyrant still boasting of his greatness while surrounded by the carnage he created speaks volumes and has particular resonance in the present circumstance.
Heed it well President Bush

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler 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 upon 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.

Don Speakman, USA

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).