Odes
“Ode to the West Wind” (1819)
Percy Bysshe Shelley
I.
1 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 Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingéd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
10 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.
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: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,
20 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
25 Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!
III.
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
30 The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystálline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae'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: oh hear!
“Ode to the West Wind” can be found on pages 783-785 in The Language of Literature: British Literature.
Helpful Information:
3 enchanter: magician, wizard, sorcerer
4 hectic: feverish, energetic
5 pestilence: plague, illness
6 chariotest: retreats, leaves
9 azure: bright blue color
Sister of the Spring: South wind of spring,
which revives everything that has died in winter
10 clarion: a trumpet with a clear, ringing tone
12 plain: an open area similar to a field or
meadow
15 mid: amid, between
17 boughs: branches
19 aëry: airy
20-23 The speaker is saying that the clouds lie
in streaks, looking like the streaming hair of a
maenad – a wildly dancing female worshipper of
Dionysus, the Greek god of wine.
23 dirge: funeral song
25 sepulcher: tomb
26 congregated might: collective strength
31 crystalline streams: the different-colored
transparent currents of the Mediterranean Sea
32 pumice: a light volcanic rock
Baiae’s bay: the Bay of Naples, site of the
ancient Roman resort of Baiae
37-38 You (still addressing West Wind) for
whose path the surface of the Atlantic Ocean
breaks in two (creates waves)…
39-40 sea-blooms, oozy woods, sapless
foliage: describing various plants that grow in
the ocean, including seaweed
42 despoil: plunder, steal, pillage
oh hear: listen
