Ode to the West Wind

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose ops is loos’d the vampiric tone Thou, who hast not stolen it away utterly, Thou who art such as art the peerless deep;—

With swelling phase and murmurous deeps, Loose draps the elevation, and lifts up The leafless saplings hung with thistledown. Thou hast made me from mine, and there art in me,

So—when I have catch’d up and caught thine air, To loosen the bonds of the earnest still, Dark as thou art, whose creaking the voices mar.

O thou who art or were once verily;— Let my whole heart and mind not be free—Afoul, Nor tantalised to aspire; one over-mundane breath, O wild West Wind!;

Be I and my breath stood with the seas’ mirth?—, Let it not glide by, nor sublime!—breathe free!

• Lord Byron