'Ode to the West Wind' by Percy Bysshe Shelley

'Ode to the West Wind', published in 1820, is one of the most powerful odes in english literature. It is remarkable and inspiring in its excellent structure and imagery that is full of passion.

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 wingéd 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 odors plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

In the opening stanza of the poem the poet presents the West Wind as the preserver and destroyer. It drives away the dead leaves after making the trees shed their leaves. These leaves run before it like ghosts before a magician. It destroys whole crowds of pale, black and sick leaves. Secondly, it carries the seeds to dark pits in the Earth. These seeds lie hidden inside the pits all through the winter and then begin to grow in the spring season. The poet addresses the West Wind and asks it to listen to him.

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 aery 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 vapors, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!

In the second stanza the poet elaborates the work carried out by the West Wind in the sky. It drives away the clouds like dry leaves on the Earth. It calls the clouds the "angels of rain and lightning". The sky is overcast with clouds. They look like the bright hair lifted from the head of Maenad (semi-divine priestess of Bacchus). The night turnes into a large grave filled with vapours and it bursts into rain, lightening and thunder. The poet here calls the West Wind as the "dirge of the dying year".

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 gray with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!

In the third stanza, the poet describes the effect of the West Wind on the sea especially mentioning the Mediterranean Sea. The stream beside the Pumice (the island of volcanoes) seems to sing for the sea and the sea seems to fall asleep that is, stays inactive in summer season. The West Wind creates a stir in the sleeping sea. The sea had been dreaming of the palaces and towers that stood on the island before the volcanoes destroyed them. There is only blue-green moss and flowers that have now grown over the remains. The West Wind awakens the sea from its dream and breaks up its even surface and forms deep troughs. The sea plants shed their leaves on hearing the voice of the West Wind (when the wind moves over the sea, the sea-plants feel the pulse of the wind).

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.

In the fourth stanza, the poet becomes lyrical. He makes a comparison between himself and the wind. He requests the West Wind to lift him as it lifts a cloud, a wave or leaf. The poet feels a lack of freedom for himself and therefore wishes to be free like a dead leaf, a cloud or a wave carried away by the wind. The poet wants to be a companion of the West Wind in its wanderings over the sky.

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?

In the fifth stanza of the poem the poet requests the West Wind to give him a part of its energy. He wants the West Wind to inspire him and pleads it to use him as a lyre and produce the music of his ideas. He wishes the rushing wind to carry and scatter his ideas all over the world. Then the magic of his poetry will transform the world. The West Wind should announce the prophetic ideas of the poet with the blow of a trumpet. His words will act as a hopeful message to the people. The message given by the poet is that suffering is followed by happiness just as winter is followed by Spring. The poet often sinks into despair but rises out of it with supreme energy and exhorts his fellow beings to fight for human freedom. The lines, "If Winter comes can Spring be far behind?" portrays the poet's untiring optimism.