Shelley’s poem about Ozymandias (the Pharaoh man-god, Ramses II) stands in immortal, unforgettable contrast to the mortal, forgettable life of Ozymandias himself:
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 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 these 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.”
Mary Baker Glover wrote in Science and Health, 1875: “Ontology receives but little attention from the working-day world . . . . The science of Soul . . . is less understood than all other questions; little justice is done metaphysics by a utilitarian people where the race is to the swift.” (p. 275)
In reality, Ozymandias’ blundering, boastful existence was a frenzied, record-breaking race to the bottom.
And so “Ozymandias” makes for a suitable watch in confronting the self-congratulatory efforts of today’s Pharaohs struggling to achieve absolute, unchallenged ascendency in the fields of science, theology, medicine (especially epidemiology).
Also relevant in this hour of Armageddon:
“And of these stones,
or tyrants’ thrones,
God able is
To raise up seed–
in thought and deed–
To faithful His.”
— Mary Baker Eddy, “Satisfied”