Ode to the West Wind

Lyrics

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'еr the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds likе flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours 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 aëry 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 vapours, 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 Lull'd 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 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: oh 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 Oh, 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, even 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?