Literature Network » Percy Bysshe Shelley

Dreary verses of the Bush-Cheney years

Content courtesy of

From: The Boston Globe
Date: 20080422
Author:H.D.S. Greenway's column appears regularly in the; H.D.S. Greenway

PERCY Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias," written two years after Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, has been used again and again to illustrate the vanity and hubris of an empire gone to ruin. A traveler speaks of "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" standing in the desert, with a "shattered visage" lying beside them in the sand.

They say you get something new from a poem every time you read it, and I had not noticed before how exactly Shelley described our vice president, Dick Cheney: "A shattered visage whose frown/ And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command/ Tell that its sculptor well ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Other Articles on Percy Bysshe Shelley

About Our Articles: We've partnered with Highbeam Research to provide these article excerpts for your research needs. However, due to copyright laws, we cannot publish the whole article. To view these articles in full length you'll need to use the link above to access the free trial at Highbeam.