Well Those Passions Read: Sunday's Poem Number 8

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley.

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.

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Okay, so I have Watchmen on the brain. It's still a good poem. And, if you know the poem, that makes the character Ozymandias in the movie, and his actions, that much more poignant -- and demonstrates why he was named Ozymandias.