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Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Ode to the West Wind - PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY




Ode to the West Wind


BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLE









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


Thine azure sister of the 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:





Wild Spirit, which art moving
everywhere;


Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!





II


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 aëry 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 sepulchre,


Vaulted with all thy congregated might





Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere


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





III


Thou who didst 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 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





Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with
fear,


And tremble and despoil themselves: oh
hear!





IV


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





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.


Oh, 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


One too like thee: tameless, and 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, 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,





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?

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