Ode to the West Wind

P. B. Shelley

 

 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  

Thine azure 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!  

  

  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! they are spread  

On the blue surface of thine airy surge,  

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head   20

Of some fierce Mænad, ev'n 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!  

  

  Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams  

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,   30

Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline 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!  

  

  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.  

  

  Make me thy lyre, ev'n 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?