Ode to the West Wind

-This poem was written in 1819 and published in 1820. "Ode to the West Wind" is one of Pierce Shelley's best known lyrics.

-The structure of this poem divides into two main parts. In the first part, which consists of sections one to three, the main focus is on nature, as the connection between the West Wind and the earth, the air, and the water is described. The second part of this poem, consisting of sections four and five, the poet expresses his own state of mind and explores the relationship between the West Wind and himself by still, using the same images of the first half.

-The rhyme scheme of "Ode to the West Wind" is ABA BCB CDC DED FF, and it is written in iambic pentameter.

-The opening stanzas set a tone of freedom with words like mid, shed, and shook however, later on, words with ending sounds such as rain, fire and hail cause an effect up destruction. Fianlly towards the end of stanza three, the negative side of the wind becomes aparent. The use of words such as dying, closing and dome, are used which creates a deathlike and depressing tone.

"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 winged 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 odors plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, 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 aery surge,

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

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae'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