Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the poem "Ozymandias" in 1818. The poem tells the story of a traveler who comes across a statue in the desert of a man named Ozymandias, who was the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. The traveler describes seeing only two legs remaining of a once vast statue, along with a shattered face half buried in the sand. An inscription on the pedestal boasts of Ozymandias's power, but the ruins demonstrate how all empires and leaders will eventually fall to the ravages of time.