Ode to the West Wind
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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 Pestilence1-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 azure2 sister of the Spring shall blow
10 Her clarion3 o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(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!
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! they are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
20 Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Mænad,4 ev'n from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height—
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge5
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
25 Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,6
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
30 The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice7 isle in Baiæ'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!
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 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 the thorns of life! I bleed!
55 A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
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
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 wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
65 And, by the incantation8 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,
70 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
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1 Pestilence: a deadly infectious disease.
2 azure: sky blue.
3 clarion: clear, sharp sound.
4 Maenad: a crazed worshipper of Dionysius, the Greek god of wine and revelry.
5 dirge: a mournful song sung or played at funerals.
6 sepulchre: ('sep-el-cur) tomb.
7 pumice: volcanic rock.
8 incantation: magic spell.
