Ode To West Wind

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Ode to the West Wind By Percy Bysshe Shelley Text, Summaries, and Notes1 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 5 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd1 seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion2 o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10 (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! Summary, Stanza 1Addressing the west wind as a human, the poet describes its activities: It drives dead leaves away as if they were ghosts fleeing a wizard. The leaves are yellow and black, pale and red, as if they had died of an infectious disease. The west wind carries seeds in its chariot and deposits them in the earth, where they lie until the spring wind awakens them by blowing on a trumpet (clarion). When they form buds, the spring wind spreads them over plains and on hills. In a paradox, the poet addresses the west wind as a destroyer and a preserver, then asks it to listen to what he says. Notes, Stanza 11. The accent over the e in wingèd (line 7) causes the word to be pronounced in two syllables—the first stressed ....and the second unstressed—enabling the poet to maintain the metric scheme (iambic pentameter). 2. clarion: Trumpet. | 2 Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 15 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
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