24 November 2009

My Name is Ozymandias, King of Kings

So awhile back I had a healthy addiction to Civilization IV on the PC. One of the greatest things about this game is whenever you research a new technology Leonard Nimoy reads a quote pertaining to said tech. When you reach Construction the quote "And on the pedestal these words appear:"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

I always thought that was a really awesome quote, so I looked up where it had come from, and it has now become one of my favorite poems; in fact I've come to enjoy quite a few works by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

So anyway, here is the full poem.

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.

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