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Tuesday 29 September 2020

Ozymandias

Apparently, I am not the only one who likes to brood on the futility of things. In a fine column in the NRC, Maxim Februari quotes the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In the famous sonnet about the ruler Ozymandias, a poignant image of oblivion is evoked. Too beautiful not to quote here:

Ozymandias

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.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley