Classics

Lines From P.B. Shelley's '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 wingèd 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;

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

***

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?

Twigs, logs and timber

Drifting over the mighty ocean tides,

Are smacked, bruised and mutilated,

By the behemoth cruel rocks.

Are beaten, slapped and scourged

By the peerless, savage waves

But they shaming despicably still flow

Away from that which is their glittering past

From that which can still incite fire

In their dead cambium and cork.

Yet these sloshed, slouching, slumbering woods,

Despondent with their dismal bleak present

Slink away from the divine hope

Slither towards their forgone conclusion

Their giddy hearts, bleary eyes seeing nothing,

Of the blazing future ahead

Hearing the whine of

Comrade

The wounded bird

Flapped its broken wings

Crossed the belt of fire

And

Evaded the vicious predators

Summoning the welcomed prey

In the volcano of inferno

Choking breath to death

And

In the lonely infinite world

To hurl and

Hook the beloved up

I face the inevitable,

I walk towards my doom.

The rays of sun

Cannot penetrate through me.

A bird's singing

Is but a lament of mine.

The rustling of leaves

Is my nature quivering.

My fate irrevocable,

My destiny irreversible,

My sins undeniable,

My life unalterable.

The fire within scorches

The nebulous shadows of my past.

The angels laugh mercilessly

At my poor screaming heart.

It deranges me to think

About the life I could have lived,

The happiness I could have felt,

Tucked in my mother's arms.

There was once protection

In my agonizing life,

There was once laughter

In my mournful eyes.

All is now lost

And now I sway with

The ruthless breeze.

It carries me away

Ceasing my mortality.

And I, a shallow being

Now cadaverous and desolate

Bemoan my wretchedness.

While in my lonesome loneliness, when I am all alone

In th' lonely room of solitude where to me no one's known

There's none to share my feelings with, no shoulder upon to cry

No eyes to see me twitch and squirm, no ears to hear me sigh

Unpleasant it is to call upon some gone memories and weep

I take a deep breath, close my eyes and simply go to sleep…