Page 53 - DENG202_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_III

Elective English—III

Notes seeds from death. Thus, he used the season autumn as an characteristic of man’s old age,
particularly when he explains the dead leaves and the breath of the autumn’s being:
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,

Shelly has used the colours to be an expression to death that has plagued the leaves and rendered
them useless:
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence stricken multitudes.
Despite Shelley’s fascination with the miserable feature of death, he immediately combines the
glistening aspect of life. However, what kind of life does he present? Moreover, Shelley believes
in radical change that will cleanse the world and opens forth the new horizon of hope and life.
Therefore, he addresses the seeds that are intensely buried in the human minds. These seeds are
seeking to be activated and gifted with a new life to bring about an ideal world.
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow.

In these lines, the poet uses the “azure”, mostly because Shelley believes azure or blue colour to
be the colour of redemption, peace of the spirit and happiness.
The poet sets his imagination on high alert to yield a comprehensive understanding for the
activities performed by the wind. Thus, he notices that sometimes the wind is wild and destroys
things, but on the other hand, he realises that the wind is also a preserver of life because it carries
the seeds to safe places as he writes:
Wild spirit, which are moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver, hear, oh, hear!
Furthermore, Shelley makes use of three things dead leaf, wave and cloud to signify him in his
poetic work. Therefore, he hopes to be one of these things to live in harmony with the wind and
unite with his body and soul.
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.
Shelley wanted to gain that unusual strength of the wind to bring back his youth. He also wants
to fly side by side with the wind and is willing to sacrifice his real existence. Being a dead leaf
indicates an abstraction of life but in this death, Shelley acquires an exciting eternity and eternal
influence on men. Therefore, the poet is not concerned with death via melancholic realisation,
but via considering death as a way for survival over the dead realities of life.

Shelley appeals to the west wind to save and cure him from all the pain in life he is going
through in his miserable life. He is hurt by this life and wants the wind to heal his wounds
Therefore, he says:
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
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
Amalgamation with the wind is summoned in the last part of the poem as the poet seeks to be
a harmonious object with the wind like the lyre:

48 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY