Ode to the west wind by P.B. shelly

Percy Bysshe Shelly

One of the most radical and also said to be most romantic of all English poets though his life was short, his contribution towards English literature is far too wide, his poetic style is both spontaneous and far too mystical.

due to poem being too long and difficult to understand I have given analysis of the poetry verse by verse.

Ode to the west wind 

(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 winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thin azure sister of 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;

Analysis

poet praises west wind saying that it is autumns breath from whose unseen presence the withered leaves are driven as ghosts are driven from magician, west wind is the one who puts seeds into soil, where they rest for whole winter until spring, which is here represented as his sister wakes them up from their sleep by blowing her clarion (trumpet) and whole land is filled with various colors.

(II)

Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, o hear!

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 sepulcher

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

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

Analysis

Here Shelly is praising west wind and calls him as a wild spirit which is uncontrollable and travels from one place to another; it is both destroyer as well as preserver. Now after praising west wind Shelly asks him to hear what he has to say. 

here Shelly says that like leaves fall from a branch of a tree into a stream similarly due to west wind clouds are scattered from sky (here a picture of giant tree is imagined whose roots are in the sea and branches on sky and upon which clouds instead of leaves are present).

on next lines the clouds are represented as angels of rain and lightning travelling upon west wind (the west wind is said to be controller of storms) and the lightning from these clouds is looking like hairs from a Mænads(mad intoxicated female followers of Greek god of wine and madness Dionysus  ), Shelly says that those locks of lightning are  symbol of approaching storm.

Shelly says that the fast moving sound of west wind is like a funeral song for the passing year and the dome shaped clouds it brings will be the dark tomb for its burial, the tomb will be closed by all the power of the west wind, and rain (color black is presented to show the darkness of the passing years last night) lightning and hail will burst from the storm representing passing of the year  

(III)

Thou who dist waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,,

Lull’d 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 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!

Analysis

Shelly says that Mediterranean sea which during summer lay still and clam, as if sleeping due to lullabies of several streams is awakened by west wind which brings storms with him and stir churn and stir Mediterranean sea, the Mediterranean is in the poem is represented as a male who during his summer sleep saw dreams about old palaces and towers submerged in sea covered with azure colored moss and various sea flowers which are so beautiful that one’s sense fails to describe them, 

Shelly says that that even Atlantic level power breaks itself into chasms for the west wind, and the various kinds of sea plants which grow on the bottom of Atlantic hearing voice of west wind become afraid and start to tremble and despoil with fear. 

(IV)

If I were a dead leaf thou mightiest bear;

If I were 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 seem’d a vision-I 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 thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d

One too like thee-tameless, and swift, and proud.

Analysis

shelly says that if only he could have been a dead leaf or a cloud he could have shared the powers of uncontrollable west wind and would have become as free and uncontrollable as him, but as he cannot he at least wants to become comrade of west wind, the poet says that during his boyhood days he could  have been similar to west wind and even outstripped west wind in speed but that dream now seem scarce which now can't be achieved, so he asks west wind to carry him as he carry leafs and clouds, the poet says that if he could have been young and powerful again, he would not have asked for his help but being old now he has fallen into troubles of life which has bled strength from him, weight of time has chained and weakened him someone who was once like him tameless, 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, sprit fierce,

My sprit! 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,

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?

Analysis

the poets ask west wind to him his lyre like he makes forests even through he is old, it doesn't matter as by his power both will make sweet autumnal tones, the poet says west wind to merge with his spirit and drive his thought all over the universe like withered leaves, which sparks new birth of thoughts from ashes of his thoughts and reach among whole mankind, and through his lips he may blow the trumpet of prophecy waking mankind telling/asking them that"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?"