Ode to the West Wind
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 wingèd 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!
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 floor Dead leaves like the sea-dogs to their own shore; And chariotless pale weeds, and white sails found, Fragments of foam that cluster through the air; O see how all the world now stands bereft!
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 comet of that dream whence all have fled, The billowing air of that vast ocean, Thou on whose waves I burst like fog and mist,
O thou, a buried truth and a byword. O thou bright spirit, which art still the throne! My hand is on my heart, my heart is on my tongue. O thou mighty wind, thou spirit of the night!
- Percy Bysshe Shelley