Ozymandias was a Greek emperor in Egypt over 3,000 years ago. In 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his friend Horace Smith both wrote sonnets about Ozymandias as a friendly challenge/competition. You decide who the winner was! For Shelley's Ozymandias click here.
"Ozymandias" by Horace Smith
In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
Maybe Smith just didn't stand a chance against Shelley.
ReplyDeleteThe start sounded nice. And I loved the image of the lone shadow, or even better the only shadow the deserts knows. What a cool line!
The close is strong too, I like it. The idea of how great this race of people were is absent in Shelley's poem. His had a great king and a great sculptor, but having a great people adds to the mystery of what happened and what could have happened. Actually this poem is better upon further reading, still Shelley takes the cake.