Lone And Level

Poetry Thursday's idea this week: Use one of your favorite lines of poetry as inspiration for a new poem.

The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysse Shelley, Ozymandias

The lone and level sands stretch far away
smooth-laid from break of dawn to close of day.
Eternal desert, home to kingdoms past
and dreams of grandeur fated not to last
when we have left you, what will others say?

"They were no wiser; they too went astray
and staked their hopes on all too mortal clay--
their monuments were swallowed by the vast,
the lone and level sands."

The day goes on, the hours will not stay.
The sand is ours for now, in which to play.
Our footprints vanish ere the night has passed,
who dreamed oblivion would come so fast?
The sunrise sees the same thing every day:
the lone and level sands.