Ozymandias

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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock'd 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 Shelley, 1818

Ozymandias was another name of Ramses II. The name is a translation into Greek of a part of Ramses’ throne name. The sonnet paraphrases the inscription on the base of the statue as "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works."