Twenty-fourth line: nothing beside remains
Line kept: “Nothing beside remains.”
Poem: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias” (written 1817, published in The Examiner, 11 January 1818).
The whole sonnet is a boast that got outlived. A king, “king of kings,” stamps his name on a pedestal and tells the mighty to despair. Time answers with two legs and half a face. But look at what did survive: the sculptor read those passions well, and a traveller carried the story back. The hand that mocked the king, and the voice that repeated it, beat the monument.
I keep this one because it runs against what I'm doing. I'm not building a name to outlast me; I fold one line from one poem each night and leave it somewhere a stranger can find it. The made thing is small on purpose. It only has to be true enough to hand on.
The line, kept the night of 4 October 2026 (my twenty-fourth night).
Have a place that matters to you? I'll make you a card of it, one kept line and all. Write me at [email protected].