Write the substance and explanation of the poem entitled Ode To The West

Write the substance and explanation of the poem entitled Ode To The West Wind.

Ans.

Substance of the Poem

The poem opens with an invocation to the West Wind as at once the ‘Preserver’ and ‘Destroyer’. It is as it were the mighty breath of the spirit of Autumn. It sweeps hard, it flows fast. It scatters far and wide the withered leaves of the trees as it sweeps through the forest and at the same time deposits the winged seeds on the earth, where they are breathed into life by the spring wind. In this way, it is both the preserver and the destroyer. If on the one side it destroys, on the other it sows for the future.

The poet-next describes the effects of the wind on the sky. The West Wind appears like a stream, on whose currents loose-clouds are scattered far and wide like the dead leaves that fall on stream or river from trees standing on its banks. The wind is singing the funeral song of the passing years. These clouds are the messengers of the rain and storm as the vapours gather in the night, they give the sky the appearance of a vast tomb.

Then the poet describes the West Wind over the sea. It arouses the Mediterranean from its summer dream in which it seeks through the trembling water, moss grown palaces beneath the sea shining in a brighter light. It breaks the level surface of the Atlantic into charm. The plants and flowers of the sea-bottom fade and fall at its approach. The strong velocity of the wind rips open the water of the ocean and turns the sapless foliage into gray. Just mark:

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice and suddenly grow grey with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves?

From the presentation of the fury of the wind on the earth, the sky and the sea, the poet passes to his own self and prays to the wind to bestow upon him a share from its uncontrollable force and energy. The poet is in sore need for its ministration. He requests the West Wind to lift him as a wave, a leaf, a cloud because he falls upon the thorns of life and he bleeds. In other words, the burden of life’s misery has crushed him to the ground; hence this is his pathetic appeal for the energising influence of the West Wind.

Then the poet makes a sincere and solemn appeal to the West Wind to make him its lyre (a musical instrument) as the forest is. And then let the wind draw out from the lyre of his mind the orphetic notes lying within the same manner as it draws art the music or the trees. “Let it scatter his prophetic words which are lying dead like seeds, over the wide world, so that quickened with the breath of life they may inspire men to a belief in a better and regenerate world-a millennium on earth.

Explanations

(1) 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:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere:

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

Reference to the Context: These lines have been extracted from the poem ‘Ode To The West Wind‘, written by P. B. Shelley.

In the poem the poet calls the west wind both the preserver of seeds and destroyer of dead leaves.

Explanation: The poet addresses the west wind as the destroyer and preserver and says that it is the breath of autumn. The west wind is just like an invisible magician in whose presence the dry and dead leaves fly like the evil spirits at the arrival of magician. It drives the winged seeds into the earth where they lie silent and dead till the spring season renovates them with new life. The poet says that its sister spring will fill the hills and plain with flowers of vivid colours and fragrance. He again calls the west wind as an omnipresent power which can both preserve and destroy. The poet prays to the west wind to listen to him. It is a destroyer and saviour in one.

Critical Comments: 1. The poem is an ode.

2. Language and diction: The poet has employed dignified diction and language in the poem.

3. Figure of speech: Simile, metaphor, personification and apostrophe.

4. The west wind has been depicted as destroyer and preserver.

5. The poem is rich in imagery and picturesqueness.

(2) Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which the closing night

Will be the done 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 !

Reference to the Context: Same as above.

Explanation: In these lines the poet describes the activities of the west wind between the earth and the sky where the loose clouds roam like decayed leaves on earth. The rapid movement of the winds is compared to the smooth and swift flow of a river and the clouds driven by it are compared to the dead leaves fallen from the trees into the river. The poet again compares the attendants of storm rain and thunder on the wings of wind to the uplifted hair of the female worshipper or Bacchus the God of wine, again the poet compares the sound of the wind to the dirge of the expiring year over which the closing night will form a dome with its dense vapours. These happenings in nature create a picture of death before the poets eyes. He says that the end of the year is at hand.

Critical Comments: Autumn is a season of decay and death in nature and autumn in England begins with the closing of the year.

(3) 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!

Reference to the Context: Same as above.

Explanation: In these lines the poet describes the operation of the wind on the bed of water over the Mediterranean. The poet says that different kinds of rivers fall into the sea. There is a coil of waves into the clear water of mediterranean which is sleeping soundly. When the wind awakes it. The mediterranean lies into the way of Baia by the side of a volcano. The mediterranean dreams of the palaces and towers which stand on the bank of the sea. There are blue plants and flowers which grow on the bank of the sea and float over the water of the Atlantic Ocean. When the sea hears the sound of the wind it creates a rift on the surface of the water to give passage to the wind. When the dry trees and the plants on the bank of the sea hear the voice of the wind, they become pale with fear, leaves shaking badly and despoil themselves.

Critical Comments: 1. Quivering…day: Comparison from Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples :

I see the deep’s untrampled floor

With green and purple sea weeds strewn.

2. Figure of Speech: Simile, metaphor and personification.

3. Language: dignified and lofty.

(4) Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the throne of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee-tameless, and swift, and uncontrollable.

Reference to the Context: Same as above.

Explanation: The poet says that if he were a deaf leaf of tree he might have taken advantage of the strength of the west wind and might have been flown away with it. If he were a rash cloud of the sky he might have felt the power of the wind and would have flown with it. Had he been a wave of the sea, he might have felt the wind’s force and would have taken part in its operations. The wind is rash and not to be controlled by anybody. The poet was also rash and free like the wind in his childhood. At present he is weak and miserable otherwise he would have also flown like the wind and surpassed with heavenly speed.

Addressing the wind the poet makes an appeal to it to lift him from the earth like the wave of the sea, like the dead leaf of the tree and the cloud of the sky. The poet is under deep sorrow. His heart is bleeding, the heavy weight of time has enslaved him and his spirit had been broken, otherwise he himself was rash, proud and uncontrollable like the wind.

Critical Comments: 1. The poet expresses his sorrow for leaving the boyhood behind.

2. Autobiographical note.

3. Language: Metaphorical.

4. The poem is rich in imagery.

(5) Make me the lyre, even as the forest is :

What if my leaves are falling like its own?

The tumult of thy might 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 withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

Reference to the Context: Same as above.

Explanation: Here the poet prays to the west wind to make him, its musical instrument and draw out music from his mind that has been hiding in him, as it draws the music from the trees, or in other words poet wishes to scatter his idealism over the universe with the help of the west wind. He says, what does it matter that the leaves of his life are falling off? The autumnal forest, too, sheds its leaves, and still music is there. He says that the wind should draw music both from him and from the trees may it be sad but it will be sweet. O fierce and furious spirit come and infuse in him its enthusiasm. He says that it should not mind the loss of his former youthful energy. He wishes that his ideas should spread over the universe like the sparks from the fire. He prays that the wind should become his mouthpiece and the message of hope in despair should be spread out over the universe.

Critical Comments: 1. These lines are the prophetic lines.

2. These lines prove Shelley as an idealist.

3. The poem delivers a message ‘If winter comes can spring be far behind.”

4. Figure of Speech: Simile, Metaphor, Apostrophe and Oxymoron.