"Ozymandius"

Upon reading “Ozymandias,” by Percy Blythe Shelly, it is not difficult to see the connection Shelly makes between his well placed words and the theme of timelessness. The situation described in this poem is that of an ancient ruin, reclaimed by the sand. The subject of Egyptian rulers and their shrines defines the idea of immortality perfectly. There can be no question that vanity brought most of these rulers, not only Ramses II, to the assumption that building gigantic statues and monolithic temples would prove to the world that these people were great. The declaration, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look at my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” (721) happens to come off as a pretty vain thing to say. Then the irony enters. Directly after this bold statement reads, “Nothing beside remains… the lone and level sands stretch far away.”(721) Ending the poem with those lines suggests that nature is the true “king of kings.” Nature will always and inevitably reclaim what we take from it. One can definitely understand how the use of imagery can become a powerful tool in poems.