Ode to the West Wind
I
O wild West Wind, though breath of Autumn's being
personification, alliteration, apostrophe
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
unseen presence because the wind is tangible but not visible
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing
dead leaves compared to ghosts. West wind compared to exorcist (enchanter) who drives away ghosts
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
the color of fallen leaves
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
leaves, unwanted, decayed elements
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low
In the last line of the previous stanza, Shelley begins to speak about the wind as a chariot who delivers to the dark, cold earth, the winged seeds, where they simply lie on the ground, scattered, dormant, cold and wet under the snow, hence:
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Buried, like a corpse, under the snow, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
your sister, the East wind, the bright one who comes in spring, blows
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
The Earth is asleep by the time you leave; then your sister comes along and gives a clarion call to all that are alive, and they wake up
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to fill in air)
And as she comes, like flocks that are led to pastures, sweet buds open up to breathe in air, and offer their scent to this lovely lady, your sister
With living hues and odors plain and hill:
This is a continuation of "and fill" as in "and fill with living hues and odors plain and hill" meaning she fills the plains and the hills with bright, vibrant colors (living hues) and fresh, happy smells
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Getting back to you, West Wind - you wild, uncontrollable spirit
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!
Destroys the old and decadent, seeds the unborn and preserves them under their dark wintry bed.
Listen up, sir!
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Personified the Mediterranean
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
Heady perfumes
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Ecstatic madness
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Know and fear.
Intensity of passion
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
Before you come, the sea-bed can hear you coming and it trembles for fear
The West Wind, like any other revolutionary force, terrifies the old and the decadent and the complacent
IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
V
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
:''):'') :'')
O wild West Wind, though breath of Autumn's being
personification, alliteration, apostrophe
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
unseen presence because the wind is tangible but not visible
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing
dead leaves compared to ghosts. West wind compared to exorcist (enchanter) who drives away ghosts
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
the color of fallen leaves
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
leaves, unwanted, decayed elements
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low
In the last line of the previous stanza, Shelley begins to speak about the wind as a chariot who delivers to the dark, cold earth, the winged seeds, where they simply lie on the ground, scattered, dormant, cold and wet under the snow, hence:
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Buried, like a corpse, under the snow, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
your sister, the East wind, the bright one who comes in spring, blows
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
The Earth is asleep by the time you leave; then your sister comes along and gives a clarion call to all that are alive, and they wake up
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to fill in air)
And as she comes, like flocks that are led to pastures, sweet buds open up to breathe in air, and offer their scent to this lovely lady, your sister
With living hues and odors plain and hill:
This is a continuation of "and fill" as in "and fill with living hues and odors plain and hill" meaning she fills the plains and the hills with bright, vibrant colors (living hues) and fresh, happy smells
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Getting back to you, West Wind - you wild, uncontrollable spirit
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!
Destroys the old and decadent, seeds the unborn and preserves them under their dark wintry bed.
Listen up, sir!
II
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
The wind is compared to a stream. In this stanza, Earth, air and water come together and wreak havoc (commotion)
Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
The sky is compared to a tree, from which loose leaves (clouds) fall out when shaken by you.
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
The way the wind blows the clouds around - clouds, here, are angels of rain and light spread on the blue surface of the sky
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Just as hair whips as wind blows through it, so do you toss around clouds
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/maenads.html
Meaningless allusion. Don't worry about it.
Of the horizon to the zenith's height
From the dim verge of the horizon - dark edge of the horizon to the zenith's height - the top of the sky (the highest but brightest star, perhaps?)
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Shelley began with speaking of how the Maenad's hair moves in the wind. Now he builds up on this image and the Maenad's whipping hair achieves gigantic, epic proportions and becomes the clouds of a storm, whirling and raging.
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: O hear!
http://www.shmoop.com/ode-to-west-wind/funerals-symbol.html
"Lines 23-28: This extended metaphor compares the West Wind to a dirge, the dying year to the dead man in a funeral, and the night sky to the dome of a sepulchre. Toward the end of the metaphor, Shelley’s imagery breaks away from the strict correspondences of the metaphor, and both the wind and the inside of the sepulchre become stormy. It’s almost as though, when the storm breaks, when "Black rain and fire and hail will burst," the metaphor is broken down from inside"
The wind is compared to a stream. In this stanza, Earth, air and water come together and wreak havoc (commotion)
Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
The sky is compared to a tree, from which loose leaves (clouds) fall out when shaken by you.
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
The way the wind blows the clouds around - clouds, here, are angels of rain and light spread on the blue surface of the sky
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Just as hair whips as wind blows through it, so do you toss around clouds
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/maenads.html
Meaningless allusion. Don't worry about it.
Of the horizon to the zenith's height
From the dim verge of the horizon - dark edge of the horizon to the zenith's height - the top of the sky (the highest but brightest star, perhaps?)
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Shelley began with speaking of how the Maenad's hair moves in the wind. Now he builds up on this image and the Maenad's whipping hair achieves gigantic, epic proportions and becomes the clouds of a storm, whirling and raging.
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: O hear!
http://www.shmoop.com/ode-to-west-wind/funerals-symbol.html
"Lines 23-28: This extended metaphor compares the West Wind to a dirge, the dying year to the dead man in a funeral, and the night sky to the dome of a sepulchre. Toward the end of the metaphor, Shelley’s imagery breaks away from the strict correspondences of the metaphor, and both the wind and the inside of the sepulchre become stormy. It’s almost as though, when the storm breaks, when "Black rain and fire and hail will burst," the metaphor is broken down from inside"
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Personified the Mediterranean
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
Heady perfumes
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Ecstatic madness
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Know and fear.
Intensity of passion
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
Before you come, the sea-bed can hear you coming and it trembles for fear
The West Wind, like any other revolutionary force, terrifies the old and the decadent and the complacent
IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a dead leaf, you could carry me
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
If I were a swift cloud I could flee with thee
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
If I were a wave I'd rise and fall with you, and share your strength
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
But as a wave, as a part of the mighty ocean, I would be less free than you, O Uncontrollable
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
If I were as I used to be as a child, running with you in the skies
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
And when I thought I could outrun you. If I were still that boy I would never have tried
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
like this to pray to you (almost) in my sore need to fly, to change
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
<swoons>
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
I am bound by the prosaic monotony of life - TAKE ME AWAY!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
Time and history ^
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
Strum the strings of my heart, like the trees in the forest rustle as you pass through them
Strum the strings of my heart, like the trees in the forest rustle as you pass through them
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
Who cares if, like the leaves of the trees of the forest, part of me is taken away (exhausted)
Who cares if, like the leaves of the trees of the forest, part of me is taken away (exhausted)
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Like the bass voice, the sound you make will be deep and mighty, and as the autumn - sweetly sad
Like the bass voice, the sound you make will be deep and mighty, and as the autumn - sweetly sad
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
Oh fierce Spirit, make mine like you
Oh fierce Spirit, make mine like you
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Become me, oh quick, thoughtless, careless, impulsive, rapid force!!
Become me, oh quick, thoughtless, careless, impulsive, rapid force!!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
When dead leaves fall off, new ones take their place and bring in happy change. Likewise, let my words fall like leaves over the universe and affect change.
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind
Rearrange and read as:
"And, by the incantation of this verse, scatter my words among mankind as ashes and sparks from an unextinguished hearth"
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
Through my words, wind, become the trumpet of a prophecy -
Make me a prophet and bring in change!
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
:''):'') :'')
Now, all the side notes I could not add in the explanations:
Is the poem about the West Wind? Autumn? No, it is about radical change in Europe - a new, revolutionary world view. Always remember that this wordsmith is called Shelley the Revolutionary to this day.
He compares the West and East winds, and Autumn and Spring - one blows away decay and is the harbinger of change, the other is new life.
A question that can be asked is a comparison (similarities and differences) of the Romantics
The commonality is their strong visual narrative and use of pathetic fallacy
The differences are their styles
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