Poem: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
helley brings us to the statue from a distance, starting with a second hand account told by a traveler. The ellipses in the third line suggest a passage of time, which allows the describer of the statue to shift to the poet himself, who perhaps has taken the elapsed time to travel to the desert to see things for himself. Regardless of who is telling the tale, the scene seems close to us, an effect created by the description of relative locations of the stones ("Near them, on the sand, || Half sunk...") and verbs in present tense. The major aspect of the sonnet that is distinguished between the octave and sestet is the perspective through which we see the ancient statue: a broken monument to a cruel ruler, or a pathetic boast against the mightiest of all, Time. The octave shows us the remaining bits of Ozymandias, fearsome even in their deconstructed state. By the eighth line, the king is well identified with the statue of himself, his imagined personality does seem quite stony. The sestet redirects our attention to another medium, the words on the pedestal. Contrary to the broken statue, the words are complete...the only complete part of Ozymandius left to look upon, in fact. There are two ways lines 10-11 can read: we can take the inscription simply as a warning or threat to other would-be powerful figures, or we can see a bit more profound statement if taken in combination with the ruined statue - look upon what little remains of me, and despair...for time cares for no one, mighty or meek. The second interpretation of the pedestal's message is supported by the subdued, almost lamenting final lines of the sonnet. Our mind's eyes are drawn away from the statue to gaze at the desert, empty and barren.