Explore one way in which 'power' is presented in the poem Ozymandias.

As a Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley was pre-occupied with the power of nature over men. We see a clear example of this in the poem 'Ozymandias'. Shelley's representation of a man so powerful that he is "King of Kings" - making even traditionally impressive men seem insignificant in comparison - is contrasted with the indifference of the natural world. In much the same way that Ozymandias makes other kings seem insignificant, Shelley acknowledges the Pharaoh's greatness before revealing its irrelevance in the wider world: "Round the decay/ Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/ The lone and level sand stretch far away." The Pharaoh's statue is said to be "colossal", an awe-inspiring adjective especially in its association with the Colossus of Rhodes, a (similarly lost) wonder of the ancient world. All the same, its dimensions are dwarfed by the "boundless" desert. Here, Shelley invokes the Romantic concept of The Sublime - the idea that the natural world is so unimaginably vast as to inspire a spiritual reverence and terror - in his choice of adjective; the desert is literally without boundary or limit - infinite. Shelley's poem serves as a reminder that our lives are fleeting, encouraging us to stay humble in the face of a natural world whose power is far beyond our comprehension and control.