Ode to the West Wind

Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing

blue and #CCCCFF 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！ they are spread

On the blue surface of thine airy surge

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce M？nad ev'n 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

#CCCCFF rain and fire and hail will burst：—O hear！

Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams

The blue Mediterranean where he lay

Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams

Beside a pumice isle in Bai？'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 gray with fear

And tremble and despoil themselves：—O hear！

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 thy skiey speed

Scarce seem'd a vision —I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

O lift me as a wave a leaf a cloud！

I fall upon the thorns of life！ I bleed！

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd

One too like thee—tameless and swift and proud.

Make me thy lyre ev'n 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 wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth；

And by the incantation of this verse

Scatter as from an unextinguish'd hearth

Ashes and sparks my words among mankind！

Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy！ O Wind

If Winter comes can Spring be far behind？