May 6, 2002
OZYMANDIAS
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler 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, kings 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 lived from 1792 to 1822. He was a free-thinker, always on the intellectual fringe. His college career at Oxford ended when he was expelled for writing a pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism. After a bizarre and adventurous history with many women, he settled down in marriage with his soul-mate Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who created the story Frankenstein.

It's not surprising that Shelley was fascinated with the many archeological discoveries being made during his time. He traveled much in the Middle East to visit the sites of ancient cultures.

This poem, Ozymandias, is his fantasy about an imaginary king of an unknown land. He tells us up front that nothing remains of Ozymandias's statue but "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and some other scattered pieces of his statue. Once the great king had been the unquestioned ruler of every land around. He could rightly call himself "king of kings." He could brag, "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair."

Having created a powerful impression of Ozymandias' magnificence, Shelley ends his poem simply, with the ironic words:

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

This is a picture of the fate of all the self-proclaimed "kings of kings" throughout history, including those who lead the nations in our day. The end result of all their pompous efforts will be buried in a sea of sand.

Unfortunately, Shelley included God in his list of failed rulers. He did not recognize the true King of kings, whose reign is described in Psalm 2:

Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and his anointed, saying
'Let us burst their bands asunder, and cast their cords from us.'
He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord has them in derision."

If Shelley had "ears to hear," he would have heard echoing over the expanse of sand that had conquered Ozymandias, the "king of kings," the sound of laughter—the awesome, irrevocable laughter of the true and timeless King of kings, who in the end will rule unchallenged.

–Pastor George Van Alstine