Ode to the West Wind

Summary The speaker invokes the wild West Wind of autumn, which scatters the dead leaves and spreads seeds so that they may be nurtured by the spring, and asks that the wind, a destroyer and preserver, hear him. The speaker calls the wind the dirge / Of the dying year, and describes how it stirs up violent storms, and again implores it to hear him. The speaker says that the wind stirs the Mediterranean from his summer dreams, and cleaves the Atlantic into choppy chasms, making the sapless foliage of the ocean tremble, and asks for a third time that it hear him.

The speaker says that if he were a dead leaf that the wind could bear, or a cloud it could carry, or a wave it could push, or even if he were, as a boy, the comrade of the winds wandering over heaven, then he would never have needed to pray to the wind and invoke its powers. He pleads with the wind to lift him as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!for though he is like the wind at heart, untamable and proudhe is now chained and bowed with the weight of his hours upon the earth. The speaker asks the wind to make me thy lyre, to be his own Spirit, and to drive his thoughts across the universe, like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth. He asks the wind, by the incantation of this verse, to scatter his words among mankind, to be the trumpet of a prophecy. Speaking both in regard to the season and in regard to the effect upon mankind that he hopes his words to have, the speaker asks: If winter comes, can spring be far behind? Form Each of the seven parts of Ode to the West Wind contains five stanzasfour three-line stanzas and a two-line couplet, all metered in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme in each part follows a pattern known as terza rima, the three-line rhyme scheme employed by Dante in his Divine Comedy. In the three-line terza rima stanza, the first and third lines rhyme, and the middle line does not; then the end sound of that middle line is employed as the rhyme for the first and third lines in the next stanza. The final couplet rhymes with the middle line of the last three-line stanza. Thus each of the seven parts of Ode to the West Wind follows this scheme: ABA BCB CDC DED EE. Commentary The wispy, fluid terza rima of Ode to the West Wind finds Shelley taking a long thematic leap beyond the scope of Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, and incorporating his own art into his meditation on beauty and the natural world. Shelley invokes the wind magically, describing its power and its role as both destroyer and preserver, and asks the wind to sweep him out of his torpor as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! In the fifth section, the poet then takes a remarkable turn, transforming the wind into a metaphor for his own art, the expressive capacity that drives dead thoughts like withered leaves over the universe, to quicken a new birththat is, to quicken the coming of the spring. Here the spring season is a metaphor for a spring of human consciousness, imagination, liberty, or moralityall the things Shelley hoped his art could help to bring about in the human mind. Shelley asks the wind to be his spirit, and in the same movement he makes it his metaphorical spirit, his poetic faculty, which will play him like a

musical instrument, the way the wind strums the leaves of the trees. The thematic implication is significant: whereas the older generation of Romantic poets viewed nature as a source of truth and authentic experience, the younger generation largely viewed nature as a source of beauty and aesthetic experience. In this poem, Shelley explicitly links nature with art by finding powerful natural metaphors with which to express his ideas about the power, import, quality, and ultimate effect of aesthetic expression.

Ode to the West Wind

By Percy Bysshe Shelley Text, Summaries, and Notes 1 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 5 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingd1 seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion2 o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10 (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! Summary, Stanza 1 Addressing the west wind as a human, the poet describes its activities: It drives dead leaves away as if they were ghosts fleeing a wizard. The leaves are yellow and black, pale and red, as if they had died of an infectious disease. The west wind carries seeds in its chariot and deposits them in the earth, where they lie until the spring wind awakens them by blowing on a trumpet (clarion). When they form buds, the spring wind spreads them over plains and on hills. In a paradox, the poet addresses the west wind as a destroyer and a preserver, then asks it to listen to what he says. Notes, Stanza 1 1. The accent over the e in wingd (line 7) causes the word to be pronounced in two syllablesthe first stressed ....and the second unstressedenabling the poet to maintain the metric scheme (iambic pentameter). 2. clarion: Trumpet. 2 Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 15 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 20 Of some fierce Mnad3, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge4 Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25 Vaulted with all thy congregated5 might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear! Summary, Stanza 2 The poet says the west wind drives clouds along just as it does dead leaves after it shakes the clouds free of the sky and the oceans. These clouds erupt with rain and lightning. Against the sky, the lightning appears as a bright shaft of hair from the head of a Mnad. The poet compares the west wind to a funeral song sung at the death of a year and says the night will become a dome erected over the year's tomb with all of the wind's gathered might. From that dome will come black rain, fire, and hail. Again the poet asks the west wind to continue to listen to what he has to say. Notes, Stanza 2 3. Mnad: Wildly emotional woman who took part in the orgies of ....Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and revelry. 4. dirge: Funeral song. 5. congregated: Gathered, mustered. 3 Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30 Lull'd by the coil of his crystlline6 streams, Beside a pumice isle in Bai's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers 35 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 40 Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves:7 O hear! Summary, Stanza 3 At the beginning of autumn, the poet says, the the west wind awakened the Mediterranean Sealulled by the sound of the clear streams flowing into itfrom summer slumber near an island formed from pumice (hardened lava). The island is in a bay at Baiae, a city in western Italy about ten miles west of Naples. While sleeping at this locale, the Mediterranean saw old palaces and towers that had collapsed into the

sea during an earthquake and became overgrown with moss and flowers. To create a path for the west wind, the powers of the mighty Atlantic Ocean divide (cleave) themselves and flow through chasms. Deep beneath the ocean surface, flowers and foliage, upon hearing the west wind, quake in fear and despoil themselves. (In autumn, ocean plants decay like land plants. See Shelley's note on this subject.) Once more, the poet asks the west wind to continue to listen to what he has to say. Notes, Stanza 3 6. The accent over the a in crystlline shifts the stress to the second syllable, making crystl an iamb. 7. In his notes, Shelley commented on lines 38-42: The phenomenon alluded to at the end of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds announce it.(Shelley 239) 4 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 45 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 skiey8 speed 50 Scarce seem'd a visionI would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd 55 One too like theetameless, and swift, and proud. Summary, Stanza 4 The poet says that if he were a dead leaf (like the ones in the first stanza) or a cloud (like the ones in the second stanza) or an ocean wave that rides the power of the Atlantic but is less free than the uncontrollable west windor if even he were as strong and vigorous as he was when he was a boy and could accompany the wandering wind in the heavens and could only dream of traveling fasterwell, then, he would never have prayed to the west wind as he is doing now in his hour of need. .......Referring again to imagery in the first three stanzas, the poet asks the wind to lift him as it would a wave, a leaf, or a cloud; for here on earth he is experiencing troubles that prick him like thorns and cause him to bleed. He is now carrying a heavy burden thatthough he is proud and tameless and swift like the west windhas immobilized him in chains and bowed him down. Notes, Stanza 4 8. Skiey is a neologism (coined word) whose two syllables maintain iambic pentameter. The s in skiey alliterates with the s in speed, ....scarce, seem'd, and striven. 5 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, 60 Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse, 65 Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 70 Summary, Stanza 5 The poet asks the west wind to turn him into a lyre (a stringed instrument) in the same way that the west wind's mighty currents turn the forest into a lyre. And if the poet's leaves blow in the wind like those from the forest trees, there will be heard a deep autumnal tone that is both sweet and sad. Be "my spirit," the poet implores the wind. "Be thou me" and drive my dead thoughts (like the dead leaves) across the universe in order to prepare the way for new birth in the spring. The poet asks the wind to scatter his words around the world, as if they were ashes from a burning fire. To the unawakened earth, they will become blasts from a trumpet of prophecy. In other words, the poet wants the wind to help him disseminate his views on politics, philosophy, literature, and so on. The poet is encouraged that, although winter will soon arrive, spring and rebirth will follow it.