
“Ozymandias” is written as the retelling of an account of a traveler who visited the ruins of the kingdom of Ozymandias, the self-proclaimed “King of Kings”. The traveler sees only stone standing in the desert land that once was the kingdom of the King of Kings.  Throughout “Ozymandias”, Percy Bysshe Shelly writes about the passage of time as the death of power and the erosion of a legacy, and argues ultimately, that legacy is as close to immortality as humans can achieve. 

From the first line of the poem, the reader is told that it is written from the account of a traveler who visits the ruins of the kingdom of Ozymandias, “I met a traveler [sic] from an antique land”.  Chronologically from the account of the traveler, and within the order of the poem, the theme of the Erosion of Legacy is clearly seen in lines two through five, and seven through nine, reading “(2) […]—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone (3) Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, (4) Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, (5) And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, […] (7) Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, (8) The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; (9) And on the pedestal, these words appear:” From his visit to the ruins, the traveler tells of the stone in the desert, the only solid, formed object within sight.  The stones in the sand symbolically represent the nature of Ozymandias’ legacy, carved stone held up on the foundation of sand, representing the futility of Ozymandias’ works.  Around the sand protruding by the columns of stone, the traveler sees the face of God, “shattered [with a] frown, […] wrinkled lip, [and a] sneer of cold command”, the fragments of a harsh image of the King of Kings, cold and calculated, ruthless, a Ruler over all ends of his age.  The visage conveys the passion and likeness of the angry god, whose wrath burned against his enemies (“Tell that its sculptor well those passions read”).  Now who lives as nothing more than stone, his likeness lives only “[…] stamped on these lifeless things”. The traveler argues that the sculptor’s hand (or that the work of his hand) mocked Ozymandias’ own legacy (“The hand that mocked them”) as King of King by outlasting his own empire, and that in vanity Ozymandias’ own heart was fed from the greatness of his own carved likeness (“and the heart that fed;”), that which outlived Ozymandias himself.  Finally, the traveler tells us of a pedestal with words leading to our next point, the death of Power.

The theme of the “death of power” is also symbolically present within the images of the ruins described by the Traveler. “(10) My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings (11) Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! (12) Nothing beside remains. Round the decay (13) Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare (14) The lone and level sands stretch far away.”  The traveler finds a pedestal, with Ozymandias’ own doxology, rather ironically reading “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” However, there is nothing but bits of broken stone left standing in the desert, everything that Ozymandias accomplished has been broken up and shattered, and The writing on the stone is ironically left as a symbol of the death of political powers.  We are told that from that which still stands, “The lone and level sands stretch far away.” An empty sea of golden sand, time conquers all but what is present. His legacy survives, yet his Kingdom is dead, a shadow of that which once was, fragmented forevermore.  Ozymandias lives on only as dust and bones, The King of King’s crown has fallen and his scepter is shattered, and all of the works of hands are futile, except for the fragmented stone legacy left currently standing in the sand. This is only to be eroded and forgotten with continual, inevitable dragging of time.

Ultimately, “Ozymandias” argues that legacy serves as a form temporal immortality.  Although we are not given any references to any form of spiritual immortality, we do know that Ozymandias’ legacy survives past himself (at least in a worldly sense) and tells of who he was, angry, cold, ruthless and powerful.  In conclusion, the themes of time, death, and legacy are present in these ways Ozymandias.  The points about the flow of time and the death of power lead ultimately to the conclusion that Legacy is the only form of worldly immortality man may achieve. 