Ozymandias, by Percy B. Shelley, is a poem that really needs no preface. It's incredibly famous, and has been analysed to death. With that in mind, I'll get right to the analysis
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.
Ozymandias is a poem about the fall of empires. Ozymandias was once a great and powerful ruler, and yet nothing of his dominion remains today. He has been forgotten by time, despite his protestations of supreme power.
"I met a traveller from an antique land"
This line sets the scene. The POV character has not seen or heard of this Ozymandias before or since, they have only heard this tale. This plays into the themes of Ozymandias being forgotten. The reader has never laid eyes on even the ruins of his grand works, only hearing vague stories.
"Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies"
The imagery here is incredibly evocative. Ozymandias once stood tall over everything, and yet now he lays half-buried, his visage shattered and barely legible. To me, this represents his legacy laying half-forgotten, and his actual character being almost totally lost to time. Someone's face is the true mark of themself, moreso than their name or actions, so Ozymandias' being destroyed reinforces how time has almost totally destroyed him.
"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:"
But time has not won yet. The finer details of who Ozymandias was have been lost, but the broad strokes are still readable. Ozymandias was a greatly self-important man, but not soulless. Though he may have mocked his contemporaries, he nonetheless cared for his people, ensuring they were fed.
"And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'"
In case you missed it before, Ozymandias declares it in no uncertain terms here. He is a great and powerful ruler, the King of Kings, and all lesser kings must look on his grand works and despair in their own fealty.
"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
And here is the central part of the poem. Ozymandias' great and powerful empire, his grand works, his vast riches, have all been lost to the uncaring winds of time. The statue of Ozymandias, once the centerpiece of it's time's greatest dominion, now stands vigil over an endless wasteland of sand, fighting an impossible battle against it's own erosion. Ozymandias may have claimed to be the King of Kings, but in the end he was just a man.