ANALYSIS OF THE POEM ,ODE TO THE WEST WIND
Shelley has written this poem near Florence in 1819. About this poem he himself writes. "The poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind whose temperature is at once wild and animating was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as fore saw at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain attended by that magnificent thunder lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions."
The poem is addressed to the west wind which is the prevailing wind for much of the year in Western Europe. In autumn it becomes very violent. It then sweeps with violent rush, strips the trees of leaves. The first stanza begins with the west wind rushing through the wood like a river and bearing with it the dead leaves-yellow and black and hectic red. It drives the ripe autumnal seeds underground where they lie buried like dead bodies in a grave during the winter season to shoot forth into plants of coloured and fragrant flowers as soon as zephyr the gentle west wind of the spring spreads its vivifying influence over all nature.
In the sky the west wind drives the loose clouds and is the precursor of rain and lightning. The terrible howling the west wind seems to be the funeral song of the dying year. The thick vapours of the dark stormy night make the tomb into which the dead year would be received.
The west wind in the sea disturbs the happy summer dreams of the Mediterranean by its wild commotion. It terribly agitates the Mediterranean and lashes it into waves. It cleaves its passage through the surface of the Atlantic and the vegetation at the bottom of the ocean trembles at the sound of its approach.
Now the poet invokes the west wind for strength and inspiration. He sees in himself the end of his boyhood power when he felt he could even race against the west wind. Now the chain of hour has weighted him down. He has fallen on the thorns of life. Troubles and oppressions have told upon his spirit. He is burning with desire to have some of the impulsive force of the mighty wind, which is tameless swift and proud. He prays it to lift him up like a leaf and a wave.
The poet's despair gives way to a new kind of hope. He offers himself up to the west wind in the same way as the sky the ocean and the forest do. He invokes the west wind to impart to him strength, so that the hidden music of his heart may come out and hasten a regeneration of human society which is sunk low in apathy, narrowness, moral intellectual and spiritual filth.
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