TWA Poet: Percy Bysshe Shelley

1792 - 1822

It's the birthday of the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, born in Sussex, England (1792). One of his most famous poems is "Ozymandias," which he composed in 1818 as part of a sonnet-writing competition against his friend Horace Smith, who wrote a similarly themed sonnet. Shelley's famous poem begins:

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who …