Ozymandias: Power Never Lasts

One of the great lies humans have been told is that if we gain enough power and influence, we can be remembered and make a lasting impact. In his short poem Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley highlights the fruitlessness of humanity's attempts to achieve permanence.

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…