Ode to The West Wind

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I.
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

II.

Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like Earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

III.
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

IV.
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud

V.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

The poem was written in one sitting in October 25th, 1819 during a stormy windy day in one sitting by Percy Bysshe Shelly. At the time being, the poet was living in Florence, Italy. The poem talks about the connection between Shelly and the west wind. The poet consists of short sonnet cycle in 5 parts.

In the first Canto, the poet talks about the West wind being powerful and fearful. The poem talks about the Autumn wind and the Spring wind, which both comes from the West in that part of Italy. Thus calling the West wind both a destroyer and a preserver. The wind carries the dead leaves in the autumn and sweeping the seeds to their resting place in Winter until the west wind of the Spring wakens them into life.

The poet focuses on the clouds in conat two, personified as angels and Maenads, at once evanescent vapors and solid atmosphere; which rain, hail and fire burst forth. As symbolically, the wind could be linked to the spirit of revolution; a destructive, dangerous actions are necessary to force for a change. The poet focuses o the quality of the wind in the first three Canto. While it is also worth noting the mixing of Christian and Pagan imagery. The poet speaks of heaven, angels while involking the Maenads; the wild woman who followed Dionysus. These two symbolism combined, creating a sense of the wild and a terrible power of the natural world.

In the third canto, the poet focuses on the sea, and for the third time the poet calls onto the wind to listen to him. In the first three cantos, Shelley has addressed the west wind being powerful, wild and fearful; and how the west wind exerts its power. In the next two cantos, the poet addresses what he wanted to say to the West wind all along.

The sense of conflict within the poet himself, reflected in apparent inconsistency and internal contradiction in the fourth Canto. On one hand, Shelley seeks to place himself under the power of the wind, like a leaf; while on the other hand Shelley sees himself as being the wind itself. Even as being in competition with it, striving with it in prayer. Underlying these conflicting feelings towards the wind is Shelley’s description of himself as “falling on the thorns of life” and bleeding. The wind makes things rise up and Shelley calls on the wind, since he too wishes to be rise; to free himself from the thorns. There is something once pathetic and noble in his characterization of himself as Shelley’s human frailty is pitted against the uncontrollable power of nature.

In the last Canto, Shelley goes into more detail of what he wants from the wind. He wants to be an instrument, to be played by the wind. He wants the spirit of the wind to become his spirit. He wants the wind to be him and he wishes to scatter his words; his poetry among mankind. With this, we can see that one of the thing Shelley most deeply believed in was the power of poetry to change the world. He believed people could develop empathy, understanding of others through poetry. The apparent tumult, disorder of the wind is a part of a great harmony. The sadness of the dying year is necessary to the birth of a new year. Shelley seeks not to only be the wind, but for the wind to be him; to raise him up and scatter his words among men.