In “Ozymandias,” a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, we learn that Ozymandias was a powerful king. Ozymandias, in reality, was Egyptian king Ramses II, called “Ozymandias” by the Greeks. He ruled for a very long time and was considered a tyrant.

The Statue of Ozymandias In Shelley’s work, the statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, or Ozymandias, symbolizes political tyranny.

Colossal means very huge and wreck means something that’s badly damaged. In the poem Ozymandias, colossal wreck refers to the badly damaged statue of the king (Ozymandias)

It means there remains no trace of power and glory that king Ozymandias was once proud and boastful of. There is nothing but sand round the wrecked statue. The desert and the sands signify the desolation and emptiness of the land where the kingdom once stood.

Finally, in the third line, “lone” alliterates with “level” and “sands” alliterates with “stretch.” Again, the alliteration contributes to the image of the desert, but with an added element. The sands stretch “far away.” The words “far away” are suggestive of time as well as place.

In the lines ‘wrinkled lips and sneer of cold’,are symbolic of the scornful expressions of the tyrannical ruler, Ozymandias. The lifeless things are the legs of stone and the shattered face. It is the passions sculpted on these lifeless things that remain.

The Prelude is a powerful poem about the power of nature and its conflict with man, and how nature always wins, as man is insignificant compared to nature. The poem shows the spiritual growth of the poet and how he comes to terms with his place in nature and the world.