Poet's Corner

"Ode to the West Wind"

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Poem explanation

I

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,



5    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





10   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!

II

15   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 aëry surge,



20   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



25   Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher,



     Vaulted with all thy congregated might





     Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere



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

III

     Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 



30   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,





35   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



40   The sapless foliage of the ocean, know





     Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray 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;



45   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,



50   As then, when to outstrip thy skyey 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!





55   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





60   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!



65   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, 



70   If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Source: Exploring Poetry, Gale, 1997.