Ode to the West Wind by: Percy Bysshe Shelley

1. Ode to the West Windby: Percy Bysshe Shelley KwesiAbakah Errol Allen

2. Ode to the west wind • #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 wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,  •   Each like a corpse within its grave, until  • Thineazure sister of the Spring shall blow      • #Her clarion 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! 

3. # 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 Mænad, 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,  25 • Vaulted with all thy congregated might    • #Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere  • Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!   

4. #Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams  •  The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,  30 • Lull'dby the coil of his crystàlline streams,    • #Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ'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: O hear!   

5. #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 skiey speed  50 • 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 the thorns of life! I bleed!    • # A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd  55 • One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud. 

6. #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

7. Literal sense of the poem • Ode to the West Wind is a poem that is literally addressed to the west wind. It is • personified both as a "Destroyer" and a "Preserver". It is seen as a great power of • nature that destroys in order to create, that kills the unhealthy and the decaying to • make way for the new and the fresh.

8. Canto I • “The poet addresses the west wind as "Wild" and the "Breath of Autumn's Being." It is a powerful force which drives the dead leaves which are yellow, black, pale and hectic red, to distant places like ghosts from an enchanter. The west wind carries winged seeds to their dark wintery beds underground which remain there till the west winds sister in the spring season blows and these seeds then blossom into sweet, scented flowers. The earth then will be alive with these living lives or colours and scents or fragrances. In this way the west wind acts both as a Destroyer and Preserver. “

9. Canto II • “The Shelley describes the powerful effect of the west wind in the sky. The west wind brakes away the "Clouds" like earth's decaying leaves from the boughs of Heaven. After being plucked, these assume the fierce posture of black rain and hail. These rain clouds are compared to the outspread hair covering the sky from its horizon to its zenith. The wildness and confusion in the sky is compared to some fierce Maenad, the worshipper of Bacchus, the Greek God of wine. Maenad worships god in a frenzied fashion, uplifting her hair like tangled clouds. These indicate the approaching storm. • The West Wind becomes a dirge (funeral song) which is being sung for the dying year. The night becomes a vast tomb where vapours have been built like arches and will soon come down as rain and hail”

10. Canto III • “The west wind blows over the blue Mediterranean sea which has been described as a vast sleepy snake, which dreams of old civilization (palaces and towers) rich in flowers and vegetation. The sea sees "old palaces and towers" in sleep, which quiver when the west wind blows. Both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic seas are affected by the West Wind. The Atlantic's surface gets cut into chasms to make way for the West Wind and the vegetation below the surface trembles in fear at the force of the west wind.”

11. Canto IV • “The West Wind now becomes a personal force. The poet says that if he were a dead leaf, a swift cloud, a wave, he could experience the West Wind's power and its strength. In his childhood, the poet had the power and strength and could probably out speed the west wind, but now he (the poet) no longer has the strength as he has been weakened by the problem, and burdens of life and he is no longer "tame less,", "swift" and "proud" as he used to be in his childhood. He is blushing as he has fallen on the thorns of life - meaning he is facing many problems/crisis in his life which has drawn away all his strength and power; and he is now looking up to the west wind, requesting him for his help.”

12. Canto V • “Despair and trauma which the poet is experiencing now gives way to a new hope. Shelly offers himself to the west wind in the same way as the sky, the ocean and the forests do. He asks the west wind to be the musician who can take out a deep autumnal tone from him and maker harmoniums music from him in the forest. The poet offers himself to the west wind to be used as a "lyre" for this purpose. The music thus produced may be sad but sweet. The poet then goes on to compare himself to an unextinguished fireplace with ashes and sparks - meaning that the poet still has some unburnt power in him. He requests the west wind to spread this power like it spreads 'ashes' and 'sparks' among mankind. • The poet ends with the hope that the west wind will carry the poet's words over the entire universe and be the trumpet of his prophecy. Winter is symbolic of despair, coldness and death; but spring gives hope to new life, birth beauty and colour. If there is despair now, hope is very close by so the poet says - if winter comes, can spring be far behind. If there is despair and hopelessness now, there is hope and optimism close at hand.”

13. What is the diction • This poem is written in iambic pentameter and use a sort of old English dialect. I’d say the language is formal. • Percy stresses and un-stressessome words to make them sound different for a loose fitting rhyme. • He also tries to manipulate the meter so that the actual flow of the poem stays consistent since it is a lyric after all.

14. What are the tone and mood • The poem as interpreted by the reader would at first come off as down trotted lyric, but towards the end change to an optimistic piece of literature. • Using darker words, the poet attempts to portray an atmospheres that is more serious

15. Rhetorical situation • For the first 3 cantos, Percy is speaking to the earth, air, and ocean. The last two cantos, he speaks directly to the wind asking it to lift him like a leaf, cloud, and wave to make him their companions in wandering. • Although he is not speaking to the reader directly his main goal is to reach the ear of the reader. He literally wanted his message to be carried by the west wind to those in England to give them hope.

16. Figurative language • The first line of the poem “Wild West Wind” is an alliteration. • Throughout the poem the poet addresses the Wind as a person. This is an example of an apostrophe and a personification. • There is a paradox in line 14 when Percy calls the wild spirit of the wind a “destroyer and preserver” • In lines 2 and 3 he uses a simile to compare dead leaves to a ghost. “the leaves dead are driven like ghost from an enchanter fleeing”

17. Imagery within the poem • The dead leaves represent the remnants of previous seasons that the wind clears up. • From some of the descriptions on the poem, you can get the image of a funeral. Dirges, corpses, the “dying year”, sepulcher, ashes.

18. Sound • Has a rhyme scheme of aba bcbcdcded • The poem is arranged into 5 cantos(parts of a poem) • In line 14 the repetition of the phrase “Hear! O Hear” is not only an alliteration but it puts emphases on the fact that Percy was trying to reach the West Wind with his voice.

19. Poem structure • This poem is a collection of 14 line poems composed of 4 triplets and a couplet • It is written in stanzas and has a rhyme pattern of aba bcbcdcded