Fall of Baghdad brings to mind Shelley's poem

To the editor:

All Wednesday morning I watched the April snow filter through the blossoms of the redbud tree and watched the story of the fall of Baghdad. I have also been remembering a poem by Shelley, who made his dislike of tyranny a lifelong cause. As American Marines pulled down the statue of Saddam, the poem seemed chillingly prophetic. Democracy does work. The poem was written in l817, 186 years ago.

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 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.

PETER HILTY

Cape Girardeau