From: Benjamin Wade [benjaminwade@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 10:24 PM
To: 'Benjamin Wade'
Subject: FW: Reminds me of George the 43rd



In his Autobiography (p35, Routledge ed), Russell writes:

"I came upon Shelley by accident. One day I was waiting for my Aunt Maude in her sitting room at Dover Street. I opened it at Alastor, which seemed to me the most beautiful poem I had ever read. Its unreality was, of course, the great element in my admiration for it. I had got about half-way through when my Aunt arrived, and I had to put the volume back in its shelf. I asked the grown-ups whether Shelley was not considered a great poet, but found they thought ill of him. This, however, did not deter me, and I spent all my spare time reading him, and learning him by heart."


>   Ozymandias
> - Percy Bysshe Shelly
>
> 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.