Did the poet Shelley anticipate Bush?

P. B. Shelley

Ozymandias

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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd 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. ---------------------------------------------------- I love this poem. I first read it in college English in 1957. It tells the story of power gone awry. It tells the story of ambition gone to madness. It tells we the people that if we don't carefully consider who we vote for, and to whom we grant great power, our freedom, and even our life may be lost in the swirling sands of time.