Ozymandius by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias
Painting by Julie Krizan

I consider the poem, Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley to be a good contender for inclusion in this project. 

Ozymandias 

-- As mis-remembered from age 10, with apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley


I met a traveler 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 shatter'd visage lies
Whose frown, 
And wrinkled lip
And sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet remain
Stamped on these lifeless things;

The hand that mocked,
The heart that fed.  

And on the pedestal these words appear:
 
My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings!          
LOOK upon 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.

The Ozymandian Moment

Long before I first looked up to mark the falling sky, this poem seized me, and clung tight.

It's one of only a handful of poems I've ever memorized, and the only one before I was ten. Before I ever knew the term, it whispered to me of TEOTWAWKIs past. Urgent and unforeseen. It invoked a horrified fascination that has never left me.

I've wondered since; am I prone to apocalyptic thinking - and was therefore drawn to the poem and all the rest? Or did it 'imprint' me with apocalyptic vision - an organizing principle by which I order a deluge of factoids?

Or is it just obvious?

From Ugo Bardi's post, The Seneca Effect

Lucius Anneaus Seneca wrote, "The path of increase is slow, but the road to ruin is swift."

Ugo Bardi calls this the Seneca Effect. The Seneca Curve resembles the familiar Bell Curve, but has a decisively abrupt drop trailing its apex. Bardi calls this the Seneca Cliff.

In Ozymandian terms, the Seneca Curve has three sections.

• The Rise of Humankind;
• The Ozymandian Moment;
• The Colossal Wreck.

The Rise of Humankind is familiar to us all, taught as the 'inevitable, upward march of Progress'. The vast superiority of our species over all others. Of the Present over the Past.

Oh sure, it's had its ups-and-downs. Quibbling episodes of rapaciousness, inquisition, war, genocide and terrarism [sic]. But it's all been in good fun, and ya can't make omelets without busting eggs.

Overall, we've mounted the heights.

Our Present justifies our Past.

The Ozymandian Moment is the peak of the curve. We can see further than ever before; our powers at their zenith. We entertain the smug notion that we have arrived. That we possess all knowledge and wisdom. That the future is but the mere elaboration of detail; the tying up of loose ends. The consolidation of gains.

And clearly, we can extrapolate ever upwards. Progress and Growth forever and ever, amen!

And then... the Colossal Wreck.


*****

I believe that our Ozymandian Moment lingers, but is almost past. That our Colossal Wreck will be global in scale, with lone and leveled sands - in a manner of speaking - to mark our passing.

Will there still be human travelers to wonder at our shatter'd visage? Our vast and trunkless legs of stone? I hope so.

And I wish them brighter prospects than our own.

Apologies to Pat Oliphant