When comparing and contrasting "Ozymandias", written by Percy Bysshe Shelley and "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay, there is a strong contrast between the two. Ozymandias is a poem about a long forgotten king who once had a mighty power over his people, where "Viva La Vida" is about a king who was overthrown. However, the similarities between the song and the poem are striking. “Ozymandias” is similar to “Viva La Vida” because both lyrics mention a pile of rocks built on the sand for a king; because both texts show that the citizens are enemies of the king; and because both are about a king who has lost his power. “Ozymandias” is similar to “Viva La Vida” because they both mention a pile of rocks built on the sand for a king. For example, in “Ozymandias,” the traveler says: “Two huge, trunkless stone legs / Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, /Half sunk, lies a broken face” (2-4). This means that the face, or countenance, is built on uneven ground: sand. In “Viva La VIda,” the singer recalls, “[He] found that his castles stand / On pillars of salt and pillars of sand” (3, 3-4), meaning that the king's castle is built on sand; an unstable foundation for a castle. Both the face and the castle are built on unstable sandy soil. Therefore, "Ozymandias" and "Viva La Vida" are similar because they both mention piles of rocks built on sand for a king. "Ozymandias" is similar to "Viva La Vida" because both the song and the poem are about a king who was once hated by his own people. For example, in “Ozymandias,” the traveler, addressing the poem's main character, says: “Tell his sculptor to read well those passions/ Which nevertheless survive, impressed [on the stone monuments]/ The hand that mocked them” ( 7 -8), meaning that the sculptor of the king's monument ridiculed the king's passions; the sculptor disapproves of the king and is therefore considered an enemy of the king. In the song “Viva La Vida”, the singer states: “The revolutionaries wait / for my head on a silver platter” (7, 1-2), which means that the exiled king is wanted dead by his own citizens precedents – this then proves that its citizens are its enemies. Therefore, since the king in “Ozymandias” is mocked and disapproved of by his sculptor, and since the king in “Viva La Vida” is hunted by his own people, both the song and the poem are considered similar lyrics..