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, 1818 

 (Photo: The front of Lichfield Studios, the former photography studio of the Earl of Lichfield, now used as art gallery space in Notting Hill. Coincidentally, I saw this same quote the next day on the wall of the Egyptian Escalators at Harrod's!)