Ode to the West Wind - Canto 4 & 5

Ode to West Wind

(Canto – IV & V)

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ode to the West Wind

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - IV)

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - IV) Stanza 1

“If I were a dead leaf thou mightiest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share”

Here, the speaker finally brings his attention to himself. He imagines that he were a dead leaf which the wind might take away, or a cloud which the wind might blow. He cares what it might be wish to be a wave at the mercy of the power of the wind.

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - IV) Stanza 2

“The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even

I were as in my boyhood, and will be”

The speaker stands in awe of the wondrous strength of the wind. It seems to act on “impulse” and its strength is “uncontrollable”. He then mentions his own childhood.

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - IV) Stanza 3

“The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

Scarce seemed a vision; I might ne’er have striven”

Here, the speaker seems to ponder whether the wind has gotten stronger since his childhood, or whether he has simply become weaker. He thinks that when he was a boy, he may have been about to “outstrip” the speed of the wind. And yet, his boyhood “seemed a vision”, so distant, and so long ago. The speaker is clearly contrasting the strength of the wind to his own weakness that has encountered him as he has aged.

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - IV) Stanza 4

“As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need

Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I strike the thorns of life! I bleed!”

Here, the speaker finally involves his request. Until now, he has been asking the wind to listen to him, but he has not made any specific requests. Now, he compares himself to a man “in prayer in [his] sore need” and he begs the wind to “lift [him] as a wave, a leaf, a cloud”. He longs to be at the mercy of the wind, whatever may come of it. In the final line, he refers to himself together who is within the final stages of his life when he says, “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed”. Just like the wind swept away the dead leaves of the Autumn, the speaker involves the wind to comb him away, old and decaying as he’s.

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - IV) Stanza 5

“A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud”

The speaker says that the weight of all of his years of life have bowed him down, albeit he was once just like the wind, “tameless…swift, and proud”

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - V)

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - V) Stanza 1

“Make me thy lyre, whilst the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies”

Again, the speaker begs the wind to make him be at its mercy. He wants to be like a lyre (or harp) played by the wind. He wants to be just like the dead leaves which fall to the ground when the wind blows.

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - V) Stanza 2

“Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!”

In this stanza of Ode to the west wind, the speaker asks the wind to return into him and make him alive. This is often yet one more regard to the wind as a kind of god. In some religions, particularly the Christian religion, there is the belief that to possess new life, one must receive the Holy Spirit into his bodily being. This is often precisely what the speaker is asking the wind to try to him. He realizes that for this to happen, his old self would be swept away. that is why he describes this as “sweet though in sadness”. But he asks the spirit of the wind to be his own spirit, and to be one with him.

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - V) Stanza 3

“Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

And, by the incantation of this verse,”

The speaker asks the wind to “drive [his] dead thoughts over the universe” in order that at the same time as he dies, others might take his thoughts and his ideas and give them “new birth”. He thinks that perhaps this might even happen with the very words he is speaking now.

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - V) Stanza 4

“Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawakened Earth”

The speaker asks the wind to scatter his thoughts as “ashes and sparks” that his words might kindle a fire among mankind, and perhaps awaken the sleeping earth.

(Ode to the West Wind: Canto - V) Stanza 5

“The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

The speaker has used spiritual and biblical references throughout Ode to the west wind to personify the wind as a god, but here he makes it a little more specific. When he says, “The trumpet of prophecy” he is specifically referring to the end of the world as the Bible describes it. When the trumpet of prophecy is blown, Christ is believed to return to earth to judge the inhabitants. The speaker asks the Wind to blow that trumpet. due to the speaker’s tone throughout Ode to the west wind, it would make sense if this was the speaker’s own personal trumpet, marking the end of his life. He wants the wind to blow this trumpet. With the last two lines of Ode to the West Wind , the speaker reveals why he has begged the wind to take him away in death. He says, “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” This reveals his hope that there is an afterlife for him. He desperately hopes that he might leave behind his dying body and enter into a new life after his death.

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👉 Ode to a Nightingale - John Keats' Romanticism with real and ideal

👉 Ode to the West Wind - (Canto 1)

👉 Ode to the West Wind – (Canto 2 & 3)

👉 Ode to the West Wind – (Canto 4 & 5)