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.

                                                             -----Shelley-----

Ozymandias was an ancient Egyptian tyrant,

This poem was first published in 1817.

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會憶起雪萊的十四行詩, 是因看了 "尋找烏巴----沙海下的亞特蘭提斯" ㄧ書.

城邦文化  當代旅行文學#37