“Ozymandias” je sonet, ki ga je pred dvema stoletjema napisal angleški romantik Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ozymandias je drugo ime za egipčanskega faraona Ramzesa II, Shelley pa je pesem začel pisati leta 1817, ko je Britanski muzej pridobil ogromen kos faraonovega kipa. Pesem je napisal v prijateljskem tekmovanju s kolegom Horaceom Smithom, obe pesmi pa se ukvarjata z usodo in časom. Vsi pomembni možje in velikanski imperiji prej ali slej izginejo, a umetnost ostane.
Ker ena izmed zadnjih epizod serije Breaking Bad nosi ime pesmi, je glavni igralec, Bryan Cranston, pesem prebral v napovedniku za zadnjo sezono.
Ozymandias
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.
