Sonnet · Life
Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1818
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.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/ozymandias
Quick facts
- Poem
- Ozymandias
- Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Published
- 1818
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Life, Power & Hubris
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a sonnet, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822
- Source record
- PoetryDBOzymandias by percy-bysshe-shelley, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1818
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 1587f97ccabf0b44…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Keep reading
When You Are Old
W. B. Yeats · 1893
12 lines · lyric
So We'll Go No More a Roving
Lord Byron · 1817
12 lines · lyric
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Robert Herrick · 1648
16 lines · lyric