ODE TO THE WEST WIND. I. O, WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill Wild Spirit, which art moving every where ; II. Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 15 Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge Thou dirge 20 Of the dying year, to which this closing night Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O, hear! III. Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 25 30 35 So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, 40 IV. If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; The impulse of thy strength, only less free 45 The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 50 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! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed ! A heavy weight of hours, has chained and bowed V. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Be thou, spirit fierce, 55 60 Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, 65 Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 70 1819. SOPHIA. I. THOU art fair, and few are fairer Those soft limbs of thine, whose motion Ever falls and shifts and glances As the life within them dances. 5 II. Thy deep eyes, a double Planet, With soft clear fire, the winds that fan it III. If whatever face thou paintest In those eyes grows pale with pleasure, When it hears thy harp's wild measure, IV. As dew beneath the wind of morning, As the birds at thunder's warning, As aught mute yet deeply shaken, IO 15 20 |