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 Foot Fetish, Kink of Kinks;
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."
And yet, as that lone monument remains,
It shows the feet and ankles, and the shins.
Declaring foot fetishists do remain,
As all around decays into the sand.
Those trunkless legs, the monument, stand whole,
Denying that their form would need show more.
That shattered visage, frowning, wrinkled, cold,
But shows the dominated on the floor,
With passion in its ecstatic despair,
That they are not yet trod upon again.
Look on these Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
For ever, as humankind keeps their feet,
There shall remain those holders of the kink
To fetishize the soul within our soles.