Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue (1876)/Sonnet

For other versions of this work, see Ozymandias (Shelley).

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Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue (1876)
by Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Henry Buxton Forman

Sonnet

2149772Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue (1876) — SonnetPercy Bysshe Shelley

SONNET.^[1]

OZYMANDIAS.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. 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.

↑ In Mr. Middleton's Shelley and His Writings (Vol. II, p. 71) we are told that Shelley, Keats, and Leigh Hunt "tried to excel each other in writing a sonnet on the Nile;" and he adds that Shelley's Ozymandias "was one of these." He gives no authority for this latter statement; and I presume it rests upon the fact that Lord Houghton, in his Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, appends the Ozymandias Sonnet, with those of Keats and Hunt, to the letter in which Keats recounts the friendly strife. Lord Houghton (Vol. 1, p. 99) merely introduces the three Sonnets with the words, "These are the three sonnets on the Nile here alluded to, and very characteristic they are." At all events it is to be remarked that this is not a sonnet on the Nile, and that, among the Leigh Hunt MSS. placed at my disposal by Mr. Townshend Mayer, there is a sonnet in Shelley's handwriting addressed "To the Nile,"—Which will duly appear in this edition of his works.

[1] In Mr. Middleton's Shelley and His Writings (Vol. II, p. 71) we are told that Shelley, Keats, and Leigh Hunt "tried to excel each other in writing a sonnet on the Nile;" and he adds that Shelley's Ozymandias "was one of these." He gives no authority for this latter statement; and I presume it rests upon the fact that Lord Houghton, in his Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, appends the Ozymandias Sonnet, with those of Keats and Hunt, to the letter in which Keats recounts the friendly strife. Lord Houghton (Vol. 1, p. 99) merely introduces the three Sonnets with the words, "These are the three sonnets on the Nile here alluded to, and very characteristic they are." At all events it is to be remarked that this is not a sonnet on the Nile, and that, among the Leigh Hunt MSS. placed at my disposal by Mr. Townshend Mayer, there is a sonnet in Shelley's handwriting addressed "To the Nile,"—Which will duly appear in this edition of his works.

[1]