The copy-text is the first published version, The Examiner, 11 January 1818, under the pseudonym “Glirastes.”
I met a Traveller from an antique land, | ||
Who said, “two vast and trunkless legs of stone | ||
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand, | ||
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, | face | |
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, | ||
Tell that its sculptor well those passions° read, | emotions | |
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! | ||
No thing beside remains. Round the decay | ||
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, | ||
The lone and level sands stretch far away. |