And me, whom the complexion of the times and steadfastness in honor drive to flee through alien nations, me may the Muses summon to evoke all heroes, for the Muses only forever breathe life into human thought. They sit to watch the sepulchers, and when Time with its cold wings there sweeps away even the last ruins, the Pierian sisters gladden the desert wastes with their singing, and harmony overwhelms the silence of a thousand ages. At this, a moan will issue from the secret vaults, and the whole tomb will tell the story of Ilion twice razed and twice rebuilt in tragic splendor on the silent streets only to enhance the glory of Peleus' children in their last trophy. The sacred bard, soothing the hurt of those souls with his song, will make Greek princes immortal through all the lands that father Ocean embraces. And you, Hector, will be honored by tears wherever blood shed for one's homeland is holy and revered, and as long as the sun keeps shining on the disasters of mankind.
Nothing beside remains.
The lone and level sands stretch far away. Ozymandias is the Greek name of Ramesses II, third pharaoh of Dynasty XIX, who ruled Egypt for 66 years beginning in 1279 B.C. Shelley learned of Ozymandias and the core of his tale from the History of Diodorus Siculus, a Greek writer of the mid-first century B.C. , who in turn derived his account from a history of Egypt written about 300 B.C. by Hecataeus of Abdera. Boston University colleagues Norman Hammond, Christopher Ricks, and Rosanna Warren.