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, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Source: Shelley’s Poetry and Prose (1977)

-copied from here.

(First, I copied the poem, then I searched for an appropriate image - and found the poem.)

This is the poem by Shelley mentioned in the previous post. See also Sultan After Sultan.

Such poems are relevant to Poul Anderson's Technic History which shows the twilight of Empire, then a later period when Anglic has become a dead language.