Ozymandias: Poem # 08; First Year English

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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd 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.

Reference: 

These lines have been taken from the poem Ozymandias written by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Context:

The poet has beautifully linked to pride and the wrecked reality of life with an event. When a man gets power, he becomes proud, merciless and cruel. He enjoys the luxuries of life and forgets his end. The poet has conveyed the idea that the feelings of superiority in a man are only self-deception. The reality is death.

Stanza 1

I met a traveler from an ....... the heart that fed:

Explanation:

In these lines, the poet tells that he met a traveler from an old and deserted land. The traveler told him that he saw two big legs standing in the desert. The two huge legs, which were made of stone, were standing without the upper part of the body. The other part of the statue lay nearby. The arms and the face were broken and it was in a miserable condition. It was half sunk into the sand. The sand and dust covered the body. Yet the signs of displeasure and expressions of ruthlessness and pride could be noticed on the face of the sculpture.

The poet says that the skillful hands of the sculptor had left the accurate expression of the man into his sculptor. The expression of aggression, power, and pride was even obvious on the lifeless body of the King. The poet has tried to explain that immorality has a permanent impression on our body as well as on our soul. So, it cannot be erased even we pass away.

Stanza 2

And on the pedestal ...... stretch far away

Explanation:

In these lines, the poet has described what we can call the message of the poem. As the traveler continues to describe what he saw in the desert, he says that there were some texts written in the base of the statue. It read as

 My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

The texts tell that the name of the king was Ozymandias. He was the most powerful king. He ordered the kings to see his statue and feel belittled. But the tragedy is that now nothing remains except a lifeless statue of the king. The huge statue itself tells about the glory of the king. But now this huge and splendid statue has fallen the victim of nature. 

The broken pieces of the statue are being vanished in the sand. The sand is stretching far away and the statue of King Ozymandias is getting a thick layer of sand on it. It cannot be seen anywhere.