ODE TO THE WEST WIND

Poem written by Shelley in 1819

It describes the effects that the West Wind has on nature

Divided in 5 stanzas, 14 lines each

Written in terza rima, which was used by Dante

PLOT

1st STANZA

effects on the earth by the west wind  horizontal motion

“breath of autumn”

1. The West Wind drives the dead leaves and makes them fly as if they were ghosts and the wind was
a magician banishing them supernatural, fear, magic
2. “black” “pale” “hectic red”  colors to describe the leaves  gives a feeling of illness, like they are
ominous and diseased
The wind carries the seeds to their grave-like place in the ground until the spring wind will come
and revive them the west wind prepares to a world of rebirth
3. The spring wind blows a clarion and causes the seeds to bloom  it opens buds into flowers the
way a shepherd drives sheep it fills what is “plain and hill” with “living hues and hodours”
4. The wind is everywhere at once, he calls it destroyer(west wind) and preserver (spring wind)
5. Finishes the stanza by asking the wind to listen to what he’s asking, even though we don’t really
know what he’s asking yet

2nd STANZA

effects on the air by the wind circular motion (vortex)

1. The wind spreads the clouds through the sky the way dead leaves float in a stream
2. It’s like the clouds fall from the branches of the sky and the sea
3. The sky and the sea work together in order to create clouds and weather systems
4. The clouds are spread though the “airy blue surface” of the west wind the same way the wild hair
of a Maenad wave around in the air (Maenad = Dionysian priestess, they usually practiced rituals in
which they got drunk and danced)
5. The wind is a funeral song (“dirge”) to mark the end of the old year
6. The night that’s falling as the storm comes is compared to the tomb of the dying year, and this
tomb is constructed of thunderclouds, lightning and rain the nights sky is the dome of the
sepulcher (dome=cupola) it seems like the apocalypse is approaching
7. Asks once again to be heard by the wind

3rd STANZA

effects on the water by the wind vertical motion (in depth)

Mediterranean sea = Augustan age

Atlantic ocean = romantic age

1. The Mediterranean is calm during the summer, but the west wind has woken him up by making the
sea storm-tossed (personification of the sea, calls the sea a “he”)
2. While he was sleeping (the Mediterranean) he saw the old palaces and towers along Baiae’s bay,
that are now overgrown with seaweeds and plants dreamy atmosphere
3. The Atlantic ocean breaks itself into chasms because of the wind  chasms = abysses, the waves
are so tall that between one another there’s an abyss
4. In the depths of the ocean, when the plants hear the wind arriving, they turn grey with fear and
thrash around harming themselves
5. He asks again to be heard by the wind

4th STANZA

1. He wishes he were a dead leaf, or a swift cloud that the wind could carry or a wave that could feel
its power and share its strength
2. It would make him almost as free and uncontrollable as the wind  he wants to become a prophet
3. Even if he can’t be a leaf or a cloud he wishes he could have the same relationship with the wind
that he had when he was younger when the two were comrades
4. When he was younger he felt as free and powerful as the wind, he even thought he could run faster
5. Asks the wind to treat him the way it does to nature
6. “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”  reference to the passion of Christ  death and rebirth 
sacrifice before rebirth in order to become a martyr and, in Shelley’s case, a prophet
7. He explains that the passage of time has weighed him down and bowed his spirit, which was once
“tameless, swift and proud” just like the west wind itself

5th STANZA

1. Shelley wants the wind to make him his lyre  he wants to be his voice and communicate what it
has to say
2. The west wind will play its own music on him just as it does in the branches of the trees in the
forest that way it won’t matter that he’s metaphorically losing his leaves
3. Shelley and the trees are both decaying the trees are losing leaves and Shelley’s been bowed
down by life  but it doesn’t matter because if the wind plays them, they’ll make a sweet
autumnal music
4. He wants to be possessed by the wind he wants the wind to replace his own spirit
5. The wind could drive his thoughts all over the world in the same way it moves the leaves his
thoughts will become like a compost, so that even if his thoughts are like garbage, they will fertilize
other’s minds and grow something better  a compost from which new growth can come in the
spring
6. He describes his own words as sparks and ashes that the wind will blow into the world
7. The author himself is the unextinguished hearth from which the sparks fly  a fire that hasn’t gone
out yet, and is weakening, but will burn again
8. His mouth is now a trumpet from which the wind blows its own prophecy poem of revolution: he
will be the poet of a new world obtained by the destruction of the old world and its rebirth  the
west wind is the revolution
9. In the end he asks if whether or not the death and decay that come at the end of something always
mean that a rebirth will come, but he’s hoping that it’s true  the poem ends with hope