Page 155 - DENG104_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_I

Elective English–I

Notes 14.3 Detailed Explanations

Lines 1-5

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:
• The speaker appeals to the West Wind four times in this first canto, or section, of the
poem. (We don’t find out what he’s actually asking the wind to do for him until the end
of the canto.)
• Lines 1-5 are the first appeal, in which the speaker describes the West Wind as the breath
of Autumn.

• Like a magician banishing ghosts or evil spirits, the West Wind sweeps away the dead
leaves. These dead leaves are multi-coloured, but not beautiful in the way we usually
think of autumn leaves – their colours are weird and ominous and seem almost diseased
(like “pestilence-stricken multitudes”).

Lines 5-8
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
• The speaker appeals to the West Wind a second time.
• This time, the West Wind is described as carrying seeds to their grave-like places in the
ground, where they’ll stay until the spring wind comes and revives them. The wind
burying seeds in the ground is like a charioteer driving corpses to their graves.

Lines 8-12
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:
• Once the West Wind has carried the seeds into the ground, they lie there all winter, and
then are woken by the spring wind.
• Shelley thinks of the spring wind as blue (or, to be specific, “azure”).
• The spring wind seems to be the cause of all the regeneration and flowering that takes
place in that season. It blows a “clarion” (a kind of trumpet) and causes all the seeds to
bloom. It fills both “plain and hill” with “living hues and odours.” It also opens buds
into flowers the way a shepherd drives sheep.

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