I met a traveler from an antique land,
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.
And on a 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.
So wrote the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley nearly 200 years ago. As the centuries of climate change roll on, imagine what some poet of future generations might pen:
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Three vast and rusted iron bridges
Stand over dry land over where
water does not flow nor ever flowed.
And on a stone nearby these words appear:
“My name is Ozynepotisticmandias, 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.
Don Woodard
Fort Worth