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.
Analysis
What did the "traveller from an antique land" tell the narrator that he (or she) had seen?
"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,"
The "Traveller from an antique land" tells the narrator about a half-sunken and perished statue of the mighty Ozymandias. The statue is a solitary structure in a desert with the torso missing mysteriously, and only portions of Ozymandias' body remaining.
2. Describe the face of the statue. Use evidence from the poem to explain what kind of person you think Ozymandias was.
"Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that the sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,"
The statue's description reminds me of the word superiority. In the second line, "And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command," shows a physical attribute of arrogance. In my opinion, Ozymandias was probably a cold-hearted and a self-centred ruler. He reminded me of Adolf Hitler who eventually brought