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?