Ode to the West Wind: Notes
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, O 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 airy 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: O hear!
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled 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 grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O 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 the skyey speed
Scarce seemed 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 chained and bowed
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 withered leaves to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
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Apart from the alliteration it is also worth noting the capitalisation of West Wind in the poem. In typically Romantic fashion an abstract quality or aspect of Nature is personified and addressed in the poem, such that it appears divine or god-like, or as an expression of the divine
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The West Wind is, as this phrase suggests, a manifestation of spiritual or supernatural energy, associated with breath, respiration and inspiration, with pneuma and anima, the Holy Ghost or Spirit, the spirit of life itself. This is important in a stanza which contains so many references and allusions to death and decay, reaffirming the energy and vitality of the west wind. The phrase also carries neo-platonic associations, with the wind as visible expression of the abstract and intangible Nature itself, "Autumn's being": the reference to "unseen presence" in the next line carries on this sense of an order beyond the visible. This neo-platonic imagery is recurrent throughout Shelley's poetry, and is vital to an understanding of Shelley's own developing ideas about nature and the "unseen".
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Leaves here refer to trees and the wind-borne seeds, but the phrase also carries associations with paper (leaves from books?), the "withered leaves" (and "dead thoughts") referred to in stanza 5, which are driven across the universe by the power of the wind. There is a further suggestion that "leaves", in the poem, may refer to Shelley's own fears of losing his own hair, a suggestion which becomes more credible in reading the final stanza. The leaves here are dead and fall to the Earth, a recurrent theme in this stanza, but there they may give rise to new life.
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The phrase clearly helps build up the sense of death, but also life after death, which is brought about by Autumn, and by the west Wind. There are a number of images in this stanza which help build up this sense of death, haunting and the sepulchre, such as "Pestilence", "dark wintry bed", "cold and low", "corpse within its grave", emphasizing the West Wind's quality as a harbinger of Death.
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Like "ghosts" the word emphasizes the supernatural power of the West Wind, holding the observer spell-bound, but remaining invisible. Is the Wind here but the expression of this invisible and supernatural power, rather than the force itself? The reference to enchantment anticipates the next line and the references to the Pestilence-driven multitudes, hypnotised by the dance of Death and unable to resist its power. It is also worth noting that enchantment originally meant incantation, the singing or weaving of a spell, like the violent noise made by the wind itself.
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The colours of the leaves swept from the trees, but possible also a reference to the colours of the world's races, swept away by the forces of Change and Destruction at work throughout the world, i.e. not just in Europe. The word hectic here means feverish, with its related associations of frenzy, energy and writhing, picked up in the next line's reference to Pestilence, the Plague which destroys whole communities.
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to carry or steer, but with possible associations of transport to the Underworld. Note that in this stanza there is recurrent emphasis on the Earth, as opposed to the Air in Stanza 2 and Water/Sea in Stanza 3. See also the line "like a corpse" within its grave, 2 lines on.
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Borne by the air, these seeds fall to the earth and lie dormant, not dead, until awakened by the clarion call of Spring.
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"azure" refers to the clear blue of the cloudless skies of Spring, but the phrase as a whole relates to the gentle west wind of Spring, more maternal than Autumn's wind. At this point in the stanza there is a distinct shift in mood, anticipating the gentler and more pastoral time of Spring, with a noticeably more dream-like, soft and gentle mood.
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i.e., the trumpet call, a traditional pastoral motif, perhaps associated with the Resurrection, but here associated with the pastoral image of the shepherdess summoning her flocks, the wind-borne seeds springing into buds.
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bright and cheerful after the drabness and death of Winter
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The stanza ends with a final couplet which returns us to the sense of the Wind as wild and ever in motion, after the brief respite of Spring described in the previous four lines. The emphasis here on "moving" "everywhere" might suggest that the Wind, or spirit behind the wind, is continually in motion in all created nature, and not just in this one Mediterranean location, in other words, the winds of change.
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The Wind possesses these two attributes, coupled also with its role as Creator. In Hindu mythology the three principal gods are Siva (Destroyer), Brahma (Creator) and Vishnu (Preserver), and it is significant that Shelley's poem invokes all three gods as manifested in the one abstract force of (or within or behind) the West Wind. The phrase neatly expresses the ambivalent attitude which Shelley feels towards the Wind.
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in other words, the flow of the wind or air. This stanza is predominantly concerned with the violence and terror of air storms, and it begins with a description which expresses the powerful spectacle of fractocumulus turbulence ("clouds running beside thunderstorms, which can be seen discharging water into the sea, but which themselves are composed of water evaporated from the sea"), which bring air (Heaven) and water (Ocean) together as one powerful force. Note the use of the phrase "decaying leaves", which continues on from the reference to the "leaves" of Stanza 1.
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Possibly a reference to messengers and heralds of violent thunderstorms and waterspouts, but helping also to build up the atmosphere of supernatural energies and forces suggested later in the stanza.
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The Maenads were female follows of the Greek god Dionysus, the god of wine and wild revelry, who were observed to be possessed with the spirit of frenzy and excess. Here Shelley draws on the associations of this classical reference to create a vivid impression of the dancing Maenads, their hair streaming out and up into the air, likened to the water raised by the waterspouts, a further image of demonic possession.
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a mournful lament for the dead. Here Shelley seeks to emphasize the terrifying darkness of the storm scene, with its darkness and associations with death.
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The image here is of the darkened sky liked to a vast cathedral's interior, with the solid clouds forming the roof, and further images of death and also of the apocalypse: "vast sepulchre", "dying year", etc.
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At the beginning of this third stanza there is an apparent change of mood and tone, as the poem recalls the mood both of Summer, and of older aristocratic civilisations now buried beneath the Mediterranean waters. The connection between Summer and older political and social orders, the political implication of the poem, is that of the West Wind itself, which Shelley typifies as acting at first below the water, and now on its surface. In the first part of the stanza the emphasis, however, is on the sensuous and luxuriant, in phrases such as "lulled" and "sleep".
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An area west of Naples, a notoriously volcanic area, (hence the reference to "pumice"), and a former tourist resort in Roman times. In 1818 Shelley had taken a boat trip in the Bay and observed "the ruins of its antique grandeur standing like rocks in its transparent sea under our boat". As the Roman town had been renowned for its luxury, immorality and even cruelty Shelley uses the image of the now underwater parts of the resort as a symbol of an older aristocratic order, overgrown with "moss and flowers", and levelled by the Atlantic's power: As in Ozymandias Shelley here introduces a reflection on the futility and transitoriness of human authority when set against the forces of nature, manifested in phenomenon such as volcanoes and tempests.
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The West Wind has had its origins in the Atlantic, and Shelley suggests here the impact of the Wind as its effects reach across Europe to the Mediterranean. The political implications, in terms of "waves of revolution" sweeping eastwards across the continent, are clear: the Atlantic's influence is a "levelling" one, breaking down the social divisions brought about by tyranny and injustice. Alternatively, even the Atlantic is whipped into chasms by the force of the wind, so it is inevitable that the Mediterranean's waters will do so also.
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Shelley comments here "The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. the vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of the seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it." In the context of what has preceded them, these lines suggest that even the older aristocratic Roman order had to recognise the inevitability of its fall under the forces of time and of nature. Yet again the West Wind is typified as both agent and harbinger of radical and violent change. Within the stanza as a whole these closing lines radically disrupt the mood of calm and sensuality created in the first eleven lines or so
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"Despoil" here refers to the loss of leaves. Shelley's reference to the underwater trees losing its leaves echoes the earlier references to the loss of leaves in the first two stanzas, which is picked up and drawn together in stanzas 4 and 5.
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At this point there is a break in the poem, a radical shift of argument and a pulling together. Shelley likes himself, hypothetically, to a leaf, a cloud and a wave, subject to the force of the West Wind, and asks to be borne aloft with it: he may be talking about "inspiration" or "enthusiasm", both words which are derived from the sense of being filled with air, inflated, rising above experience and age.
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The Wind is not subject to the forces of self-regulation and the Appollonian urge to order and give form, unlike Shelley himself. He is asking, in effect, for a return to the raw power and energy he felt and knew as a child.
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This is an important motif which runs throughout Shelley's poetry, but is most clearly articulated in his Defence of Poetry. Like Coleridge and Wordsworth before him, Shelley uses the image of that favourite romantic toy, the aeolian lyre, as a symbol of the relationship between the mind of man and the "external world". For Shelley, as for Coleridge, the human mind could be likened to the strings of a lyre, which makes music when the wind (experience, outward sense impressions) blows through the strings and creates both melody and harmony. As a poet there is an obvious connection here with the concept of poetic "inspiration", the ability to be moved and drawn by the spiritual rush of the spirit in the air. The West Wind in the poem does, as Stanzas 1-3 suggest, rush through the trees, drawing leaves down to the ground and making its own sound. At this point in the poem Shelley makes the direct connection with his need to be inspired by seeing the Wind's force, and the impact made by the Wind on forests, creating harmonies in his own mind and verse.
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The Wind, as a force of inspiration, will hopefully enable him to spread his message across the universe, both awakening the "embers" of Shelley's art, and also the political urgency of the message itself. The reference to "withered leaves" suggests how dispirited the poet is that his poetry has not yet been effective in helping to bringing about radical changes of opinion, the "new birth" referred to in the following line. The final line of Shelley's Defence of Poetry proclaims that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world": this line puts more emphasis on the "unacknowledged" than it does on the attempt to legislate. Is this Shelley recognising the limits of his attempts to write poetry that will make something happen?
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This phrase hearkens back to the opening lines of the poem, but in this context takes on additional associations, the attempt to bring (political and social) ideas to fruition in the dead "Earth", i.e. the world is asleep to new possibilities for society and politics.
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There is a conscious echo here back to the clarion call of stanza 1: there the call was associated with Spring, and there are similar suggestions here of the proclamation of a new era in human society, preceded by the apocalyptic energy symbolised by the West Wind.
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The poem ends it with a question, which might appear rhetorical, but is more probably intended to indicate Shelley's own uncertainty. It is important to note that Shelley did not advocate the willing application of force and revolution, as his defence of the doctrine and strategy of passive resistance in The Mask of Anarchy indicates. Clearly hoped that radical social change, or a rebirth of personal inspiration, could be accomplished without violence. His comments in his notebook are useful to help us to read this final line: "the spring rebels not against winter but it succeeds it - the dawn rebels not against night but it disperses it." The unanswered question in this poem is whether or not the same cyclical inevitability will apply to social and political change as it does to the changes within Nature.
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Written in the Autumn, 1819, and published in the following year, this poem has become one of the most popular and best-known of Shelley's verses. In a note Shelley outlined the circumstances behind the poem's making:
This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when the tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.
Although the poem contains reference to this localised setting, it moves out from this to associate the West Wind with biographical, social and spiritual significance. At this time of the year, Autumn, the west wind blowing across Europe from the Atlantic can be extremely violent. In this apocalyptic poem Shelley characterises it as a destructive and fearsome force, yet it is also a harbinger of the inevitable coming of Spring. It is, therefore, both Destroyer and Creator, and Shelley sees the West Wind as a symbol of the regeneration which will follow the destruction and Death of Winter. In a personal sense Shelley addresses the Wind as a force which will reinvigorate him, the Wind of Spirit and Inspiration, at a time (aged 27) when he feels his own powers as a poet are on the decline. Socially and politically, the Wind represents the destructive and revolutionary energies which had been seen in Europe over the previous thirty years, overthrowing long-established and corrupt social orders in France and Italy. Would there be a "Spring" to follow the destructiveness of this European Autumn and Winter, leading to a new renaissance in political and social affairs? This symbolism is most clearly evident in Section III of the poem. In spiritual terms the West Wind, invoked here as either god, or manifestation of the divine Spirit, is both celebrated as a harbinger of new creation, manifested in Spring, and also feared for its destructiveness and great power. The "West Wind", in a spiritual sense, becomes an abstract expression or manifestation of the spirit - the anima, the "divine wind" - within Nature, a driving force behind the turning wheel of the seasons and the cycles of Life-and-Death.
The final effect of the poem is ambivalent, a mixture of depression and hope, signalled by the question-mark which ends the poem. Is Shelley here affirming that Spring (in a personal, social and spiritual sense) will inevitably follow this Winter, or is that simply imposing a human construction on Nature, with no guarantee that new life and purpose will follow the destructiveness of the Autumn wind?
The form of the poem is highly regular and tightly controlled: five stanzas, each of which is a sonnet made up of four units of terza rima and a final couplet, but will fluidity and run-on lines within and between the stanzas. Stanzas 1 to 3 each conclude with a phrase of formal invocation, "O hear", in the manner of a prayer or hymn, describing the attributes of the deity. In the final 2 stanzas the poet's personal voice of supplication is introduced, calling for the deity to work in and through him, restoring him to spiritual health and creative vigour, but with no final and ultimate conviction that this will happen in his own life-time.
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