I always loved browsing such posts on reddit, so thought I should make one on lemmy too

Edit: Usually these kind of posts only used to have excerpts from books or ancient proverbs, but now I am seeing a lot more quotes from shows/movies/games are also resonating with people. It’s pretty cool to see.

  • Random Dent
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    1 year ago

    Fun facts time! There are actually two versions of Ozymandias, one written by Shelley and the other by his friend Horace Smith. They had a competition to both write a poem with the same title and subject matter, which I think it’s fair to say Shelley won. But anyway, here is Smith’s version:

    In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,

    Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws

    The only shadow that the Desert knows:—

    “I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,

    "The King of Kings; this mighty City shows

    The wonders of my hand."— The City’s gone,—

    Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose

    The site of this forgotten Babylon.

    We wonder — and some Hunter may express

    Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness

    Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,

    He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess

    What powerful but unrecorded race

    Once dwelt in that annihilated place.