THE LIFE INVISIBLE
165
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on those lifeless things,
The hand that mocked 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.'"
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on those lifeless things,
The hand that mocked 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.'"
And what befell Ozymandias' image has befallen almost all the works of the ancients' hands. A few of their temples remain, and the arches of their viaducts and some of the images of their public worship and of their national ideals. But their wealth and the treasure houses which they kept it in and the palaces of their pleasure and the cities of their pride are gone. I never felt more keenly the tragedy and the truth of this utter transitoriness and insecurity of all national glory than looking over the massive ruins of the palace of the Chosroes kings at Kasr-i-Shirin. All of Browning's "Love Among the Ruins" seemed to be there in mute evidence before one's eyes:
"Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop—
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop—
