Oppenheimer's apt (if slightly misquoted) reference to the Bhagavad Ghita reminds me of another sobering comment on man and his transient abilities--among which the power to destroy often appears, unfortunately, the most nearly permanent. In all likelihood the faithful reader has already encountered Shelley's Ozymandias in fairer fields than the Regulator. Nontheless:
I met a traveler 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 upon 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."
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