Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) Comments on Saddam Hussein's Capture

by Daniel Pipes
Sun, 14 Dec 2003

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Written in 1817 about two ancient statues in Egypt, this immortal poem seems particularly apt today, on hearing the news of the tyrant's seizure:

I met a traveler 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.

(December 14, 2003)

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