What is the subject and theme of "Ozymandias" by 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 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."

A.
The subject is death and the theme is that death overpowers all.
B.
The subject is art and the theme is that art can immortalize beauty.
C.
The subject is human vanity and the theme is that human vanity is destroyed by time.
D.
The subject is immortality and the theme is that human vanity is not subject to time and nature.

The poem tells the story of a traveler who came upon the statue of Ozymandias (which was another name for Pharaoh Ramesses II). The poem's speaker is surprised by the vanity of Ozymandias , because near the statue was written "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

When the orator reads this, he watches the landscape around him and sees that there is nothing for Ozymandias to be proud of. The speaker realizes that Ozymandias may have been a great leader in the past and may have built an empire, but time has taken away all his achievements and all that remained was sand.

For this reason, we can conclude that the subject of the poem is human vanity and the theme is that human vanity is destroyed by time.