Ozymandias




 * Ozymandias**

//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, 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 Shelly (1792-1822)

1.) What do you make of the poem?

2.) To what extent do the "lone and level sands" make the study of History both intriguing and frustrating at the same time?