“Ozymandias” seems to have an epic tone to it. The traveller that the narrator talks to describes an archaic scene, shattered ruins probably in Egypt. There, the traveller finds a statue of once Pharaoh Ramses II, also known as Ozymandias.
“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… (Shelley 399)
The statue of Ozymandias asks those who look upon it to survey all the works that he has created in his lifetime, but by then all the monuments had eroded. The poem seems to say that the sum total of all human actions is null.
Ramses II’s purported himself as one who had eternal power, however his alleged works have been eroded by nature itself. Man is a part of nature, and as such is subject to it. The same with time; man is subject to the test of time. As is shown by the statue of Ozymandias, nothing lasts.
