Page 180 - DENG105_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_II

Unit 14: Ode to the West Wind by PB Shelley: Detailed Study

• In the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the different kinds of marine plants hear the West Notes
Wind high above and “suddenly grow gray with fear” and thrash around, harming
themselves in the process.
• Once again, the speaker ends all these descriptions of the West Wind by asking it to
“hear” him.

Lines 43-47

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O Uncontrollable!
• The speaker begins to describe his own desires more clearly. He wishes he were a “dead
leaf” or a “swift cloud” that the West Wind could carry, or a wave that would feel its
“power” and “strength.”
• He imagines this would make him almost as free as the “uncontrollable” West Wind
itself.

Lines 47-51

If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

Scarce seemed a vision;
• The speaker is willing to compromise: even if he can’t be a leaf or a cloud, he wishes he
could at least have the same relationship to the wind that he had when he was young,
when the two were “comrade[s].”
• When he was young, the speaker felt like it was possible for him to be faster and more
powerful than the West Wind.

Lines 51-53

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!
• The speaker claims that, if he could have been a leaf or cloud on the West Wind, or felt
young and powerful again, he wouldn’t be appealing to the West Wind now for its help.
• He begs the wind to treat him the way it does natural objects like waves, leaves and
clouds.

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