"Mao Tse-tung, one of history's greatest mass murderers, and the tyrant who ruled China with an iron fist for 27 years, has all but vanished from China's newest history books.That reminded me of the poem Ozymandias by Shelley. The arrogance of power is fleeting and unto dust we all return. Mao deserves the dustbin of history.
Instead of reading about the blood-soaked history of Mao's reign, students in Shanghai will be learning about J. P. Morgan, Bill Gates, the New York Stock Exchange, the space shuttle and Japan’s bullet train."
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.'
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.'
"Ozymandias"
by: Percy Bysshe Shelley
No comments:
Post a Comment