"Ozymandias"

In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Ozymandias," the theme that "nothing lasts" reoccurs throughout the entire work. I first line of the poem "I met a traveler from an antique land" (Shelley l. 1) mentions that land as old and fragile. This is a direct reference to the theme that nothing lasts; nothing will be as it once was. The imagery in the poem is vivid to the point of creating a picture in the mind. When the statue is first mentioned the language and choice of words work together like the man pieces of a puzzle that are becoming one. "Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, /And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command" (Shelley l. 4-5) is an example of this. Each word connects the one next to it, creating the bigger picture. The imagery of a statue that once stood so tall, so perfect and now to see it worn; crumbling at the mercy of the desert all ties back to the theme that nothing lasts. The different speakers in this poem all put forth some evidence that nothing lasts forever. The tone of the poem changes somewhat in line 10 of Shelley's poem: "My name is Ozymandias, kind of kings." This offers a commanding tone in a poem that seems to talk of things that used to be. There is one thing that lasts in the ending of the poem. "Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away" (Shelley l. 13-14) offers that the desert and its vastness will go on forever. This is the one thing in the poem that will never change.