Poetry Day 22 - Shelley, and Librarian humor

Lo, these many years ago, when I was a mere slip of a college student working at the campus library, I worked at the Reserve desk. Reserve articles in those days were not available on-line, but were instead kept in physical form behind a desk, and students would have to come in and check them out.

Once, when I was busy re-shelving a few articles, I heard two students approaching the desk, one telling the other what he had to pick up there. I happened to be holding that particular article in my hand. As they reached the desk, I walked out of our shelving area and handed the student his copy, saying "You need this."

He looked at it, his eyes widened a bit, and he said "I do need this! How did you know?".

"I'm omniscient", Sez I, feeling clever, "Ask me anything."

"Okay, then who wrote Ozymandias?" he asked.

Of course I knew the answer. They left impressed. ;)

OZYMANDIAS
Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.


This memory brought to you by the fact that I have apparently managed to work for the University for five years now without really noticing it, and they want to recognize me officially. I haven't decided if I should be more disturbed or pleased by this development...I wonder if they set the pins after they're awarded?