Page 160 - DENG104_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_I

Unit 14: Ode to the West Wind by PB Shelley

Lines 61-62 Notes

Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
• Now the speaker changes tactics; instead of asking the wind to play him like an instrument,
he asks the wind to become him. He wants the wind’s “fierce” spirit to unite with him
entirely, or maybe even replace his own spirit.

Lines 63-64

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth!
• The speaker compares his thoughts to the dead leaves; perhaps the West Wind can drive
his thoughts all over the world in the same way it moves the leaves, and they’ll become
like a rich compost or mulch from which new growth can come in the spring. That way,
even if his thoughts are garbage, at least that garbage can fertilize something better.

Lines 65-67

And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
• The speaker comes up with another metaphor to describe what he wants the wind to do
to his thoughts, and this one isn’t about fertilizer. He describes his own words—perhaps the
words of this very poem—as sparks and ashes that the wind will blow out into the world.
• The speaker himself is the “unextinguished hearth” from which the sparks fly; he’s a fire
that hasn’t gone out yet, but is definitely waning.

Lines 68-69

Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy!
The speaker returns to the metaphor of the wind playing him as an instrument, but this time
he describes his mouth as a trumpet through which the wind will blow its own prophecy.

Lines 69-70

O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
• The speaker ends by asking the wind a question that seems very simple: “If Winter
comes, can Spring be far behind?”

• The symbolic weight that he’s attached to the seasons, however, makes us realize that
this is more than a question about the wheel of the year. He’s asking whether or not the
death and decay that come at the end of something always mean that a rebirth is around
the corner.

• He’s hoping that’s true, because he can feel himself decaying.

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