Ode to the West Wind

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Ode to the West Wind I Terza Rima: Each of the seven parts contains five stanzas, four three line stanzas and a two line couplet, all in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme of terza rima means that the first and third lines rhyme in each stanza and the middle one does not; then the end sound of the middle line becomes the rhyme for the first and third lines in the next stanza. The final couplet rhymes with the middle line of the last three-line stanza. Shelley believed in reform and revolution and wanted his message spread. Some believe that this poem is an expression of that desire. 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 Sinister tone Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until East wind— color contrast 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! Alliteration and apostrophe, implied metaphor: wind = enchanter with power over ghosts The first three cantos are about the qualities of the “wind” and each ends with the poet calling 5 upon the wind to “hear!” 10 The west wind is the destroyer because it blows the last leaves off the trees and the preserver because it scatters the seeds. II 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 surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from
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