Friday Poetry Blogging

I was tooling around the Blogosphere tonight, and I notice that jo(e) has up an inducement to contribute to a little bit of poetry love. I can get behind that! Thanks for the suggestion, jo(e)!

While I'm not what I would call a poet myself, I have dabbled in poetry. It's mostly too horrible to read and WAY too painful to post, but I will contribute to the lyrical love with a poem that has long captivated me, from one of my most favorite poets: Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Ozymandias
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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 lips, 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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I have always loved this poem. It reminds me of the impermenance of flesh while giving testament to the immutability of stone. Shelley clearly lays out the feel of this poem. I can see the swirling sands and the half-buried monoliths. I can feel the harsh sun beating down upon my head. I can hear the call of the ancients as they eddy around me like the desert sands. Good poetry does that to you.