Page 181 - DENG105_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_II

Elective English–II

Notes Lines 54-56

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
• The speaker exclaims, “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”
• He explains that the passage of time has weighed him down and bowed (but not yet
broken) his spirit, which started out “tameless, and swift, and proud,” just like the West
Wind itself.

Lines 57-58

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own!
• Finally, the speaker asks the West Wind for something: he wants the wind to turn him
into its lyre.
• This image is related to the æolian harp, a common metaphor in Romantic poetry. The
æolian harp is sort of like a stringed version of a wind chime; it’s an instrument that you
only have to put out in the breeze and nature will play its own tunes.

• Here Shelley’s speaker describes himself as the harp, or “lyre,” that the wind will play.
He’ll be the instrument, and the West Wind will play its own music on him, just as it
does in the branches of trees in the forest. That way, it won’t matter that he’s metaphorically
losing his leaves.

Lines 59-61

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness.
• The speaker and the trees of the forest are both decaying – the trees are losing their
leaves, and he’s been bowed down by life.
• But that doesn’t matter; if the wind plays both of them as instruments, they’ll make
sweet, melancholy, autumn-ish music.

Lines 61-62

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!

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