Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations
Global Policy Forum Monitors Policy Making at the United Nations.
 
Security Council UN Finance What's New
Social & Economic Policy International Justice Opinion Forum
Globalization Tables & Charts
Nations & States Empire Links & Resources
NGOs UN Reform  
Secretary General   DONATE NOW
 
The Impermanence of Power: a poem

The Impermanence of Power:
a poem


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 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, boudless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1817


GPF home page