ODE TO THE WEST WIND1 I 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 odours plain and hill: 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 the head Of some fierce Mænad, 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 ! III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams Wild Spirit, which art moving every- The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, where; Destroyer and preserver; hear, Oh hear! II Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay, towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 1 This poem was conceived and chiefly written All overgrown with azure moss and in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, flowers whose temperature is at once mild and animat. So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! ing, was collecting the vapours which pour down Thou the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, For whose path the Atlantic's level at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathises with that The of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it. sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with Scatter, as from an unextinguished And tremble and despoil themselves: Ashes and sparks, my words among Oh hear! IV 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 If even Than thou, O uncontrollable! The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed 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! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. V 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 uni verse Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, AN EXHORTATION Poets could but find the same Would they ever change their hue As the light chameleons do, Suiting it to every ray Twenty times a day? Poets are on this cold earth, As chameleons might be, Yet dare not stain with wealth or power Any food but beams and wind, THE INDIAN SERENADE I I ARISE from dreams of thee THOU art fair, and few are fairer Of the Nymphs of earth or ocean; They are robes that fit the wearerThose soft limbs of thine, whose motion Ever falls and shifts and glances As the life within them dances. II Thy deep eyes, a double Planet, Gaze the wisest into madness Are those thoughts of tender gladness Which, like Zephyrs on the billow, Make thy gentle soul their pillow. III If, whatever face thou paintest In those eyes, grows pale with pleasure, If the fainting soul is faintest When it hears thy harp's wild measure, Wonder not that when thou speakest Of the weak my heart is weakest. IV As dew beneath the wind of morning, As aught mute yet deeply shaken, TO WILLIAM SHELLEY (With what truth I may say- I My lost William, thou in whom Which its lustre faintly hid, But beneath this pyramid II Where art thou, my gentle child? The love of living leaves and weeds, With soft clear fire,-the winds that Into their hues and scents may pass fan it A portion- TO WILLIAM SHELLEY THY little footsteps on the sands Of a remote and lonely shore ; The twinkling of thine infant hands, Where now the worm will feed no more: Thy mingled look of love and glee When we returned to gaze on thee. TO MARY SHELLEY My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone, And left me in this dreary world alone! Thy form is here indeed—a lovely oneBut thou art fled, gone down the dreary road, That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair, Where For thine own sake I cannot follow thee. TO MARY SHELLEY THE world is dreary, Of wandering on without thee, Mary; In thy voice and thy smile, And 'tis gone, when I should be gone too, Mary. Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, The agonies of anguish and of death. II Yet it is less the horror than the grace Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone; Whereon the lineaments of that dead face Are graven, till the characters be grown Into itself, and thought no more can trace; 'Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain, Which humanise and harmonise the strain. III And from its head as from one body grow, and flow And their long tangles in each other lock, And with unending involutions show Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock The torture and the death within, and saw The solid air with many a ragged jaw. IV And from a stone beside, a poisonous eft ON THE MEDUSA OF LEON. Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft Kindled by that inextricable error, Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air Become a and ever-shifting mirror Of all the beauty and the terror thereA woman's countenance, with serpent locks, Wrapt in sweet wild melodies- Gazing in death on heaven from those In the harmony divine |
