'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

I first read Shelley's "Ozymandias" in secondary school.

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".

'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' I love that line - and its double-meaning. When Ozymandias reigned, the mighty could well have seen the splendour of his works and despaired. Today, the mighty who have hearts like Ozymandias', seeing the nothingness which was once the realm of the 'King of Kings', should despair too.

Rulers should seek firm and lasting ground upon which to build their kingdoms (their realms and their souls) lest too late they discover that their 'castles stand upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand.'