Stanza by Stanza Explanation - Percy Bysshe Shelley Introduction "Ode to the West Wind" is one of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s most celebrated works, written in 1819 and published in 1820. Known for its passionate themes of change, nature, and revolution, the poem paints the image of the...

Ode to the West Wind Summary In “Ode to the West Wind,” Shelley defies the remote, impersonal character of the unseen Power behind Nature and strives to establish a personal relationship with it. The poem manages to reconcile the poet’s terrific emotional intensity with the elegant, even stately formal pattern of the regular Horatian ode. Using heroic meter (iambic pentameter)...

I  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: O thou,  Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed  The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,  Each...