<meta>

<name>Percy Bysshe <index>Shelley</index></name>

</author>

<title>Ozymandias</title>

<source>To be found frequently anthologized on and off line.</source>

<remark>Written by Shelley reportedly in ten minutes, as a winning entry in a sonnet-writing contest, this masterpiece may only now be edited, prepared for publication and produced in nearly as little time as it took to write it.</remark>

<remark>The artistry remains Shelley's, however, as this example reaches beyond both Petrarchan and Elizabethan conventions in an innovative movement of rhymes across quatrains that is nevertheless true to a modified Petrarchan form.</remark>

</meta>

<line>I met a traveller from an antique <rhyme on="a">land</rhyme>,</line>

<line>Who said — “Two vast and trunkless legs of <rhyme on="b">stone</rhyme></line>

<line>Stand in the desart....Near them, on the <rhyme on="a">sand</rhyme>,</line>

<line>Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose <rhyme on="b">frown</rhyme>,</line>

</quatrain>

<line>And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold <rhyme on="a">command</rhyme>,</line>

<line>Tell that its sculptor well those passions <rhyme on="c">read</rhyme></line>

<line>Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless <rhyme on="d">things</rhyme>,</line>

<line>The hand that mocked them, and the heart that <rhyme on="c">fed</rhyme>;</line>

</quatrain>

</octave>

<line>And on the pedestal, these words <rhyme on="e">appear</rhyme>:</line>

<line>My name is Ozymandias, King of <rhyme on="d">Kings</rhyme>,</line>

<line>Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and <rhyme on="e">despair</rhyme>!</line>

<line>Nothing beside remains. Round the <rhyme on="f">decay</rhyme></line>

</quatrain>

<line>Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and <rhyme on="e">bare</rhyme></line>

<line>The lone and level sands stretch far <rhyme on="f">away</rhyme>.”</line>

</couplet>

</sestet>

</sonnet>

</sonneteer>