Ozymandias by Percy Shelley Daniel 4:37:"Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven, whose works are truth, and his ways righteousness. And those who walk proudly He is able to overthrow." Shelley tells us about this statue of the great king Ozymandias, and engraved on its pedestal we read: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, behold my works, ye mighty and despairing!" We read that passage and immediately think of the arrogance and pride this man must have had. "Look at my works, O mighty one, and despair!" Works is capitalized as if it deserved reverence and amazement. Shelley also tells us that this great statute has been broken: "Two vast trunkless stone legs stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand lies half sunken a shattered face," So let us imagine these pairs of legs on a pedestal in the middle of a desert and looks to the ground to find the rest of the sculpture torn to pieces. We read the engraving on the pedestal and look around to see his works so we can "despair" and find that "There remains nothing but nothing. Around the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and naked The lonely and level sands lie far away. "I can't help but laugh at the whole situation. Nature has affected man. In the end nature won. Man tried to build a huge empire and then mocked all the work of nature and even asked everyone to "despair" because who could beat his work. In the end nature prevailed and we sit and laugh with nature while Ozymandias' face is in the ground, destroyed by a frown half sunk in the sand. The arrogance of nature is also evident. Nature has destroyed the work of man and leaves us the pedestal on which to read. Nature has kept the pedestal as a sign for us all: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, behold my works, mighty and desperate." Now replace the name Ozymandias with Nature. "My name is Nature, King of Kings, look at my works, you mighty and desperate." We can replace Ozymandias with Nature because in the end Nature won. Nothing Ozymandias made has survived. Nature survived and destroyed everything man had made.