Poem 4 - Ode to the West Wind – Summary and Match the following

Ode is a poem addressed to a person. In Ode to the West Wind, the poet is addressing the West Wind. In the first stanza, the poet appeals to the West Wind four times. He describes the West Wind as the ‘breath of Autumn’. He compares the West Wind to a magician who removes the ghosts or the evil spirits when it sweeps away the dead leaves. The leaves are of different colours. ( ________, ____________, ______________, _______________ ) They look like ‘p_________________ s___________________  m______________. In the second appeal, the West Wind is described as a charioteer driving corpses into their graves. West Wind carries the seeds to their graves likes places in the ground. The seeds will lie there waiting for the Spring season. The wind that blows in the spring awaken the seeds with a clarion call. Spring is described as the ‘sister of West Wind’ Spring is the reason for all the regeneration and flowering. The Spring fills the “hills and plains’ with colours and fragrances. The port describes the west wind as a wild spirit moving everywhere. The poet says that the West wind is both a destroyer and a preserver. It brings the death of winter and also makes it possible the regeneration. The first stanza ends with the poet describing the Wind as “hear oh hear. The poet wants the West Wind to listen to him.  The second stanza the poet talks about West Wind in the sky. The clouds are scattered by the Wind and they fall from the branches of the sky and the sea. These clouds work together to create the angels of ‘rain and lightning’ The approaching storm along with the thunderclouds looks like the hair of a violent Maenad. The clouds move through the sky. The sound that West Wind makes is compared to funeral song for the year that is dying. The night that is falling along with the storm is described as a domed tomb which contains thunderclouds, lightning and the rain. The stanza ends with the poet asking the West Wind to listen to him.  In the third stanza the poet describes the actions of the West Wind on the Mediterranean Sea. The sea was asleep in summer and it dreamt about ‘the old palaces and towers’. which exist under the water near Baiae’s Bay. The West Wind has woken the Mediterranean Sea, by stirring the surface of the sea with rough waves and a storm. The West Wind influences even the Atlantic Ocean. The different kinds of marine plants hear the West Wind high above and suddenly grow angry with fear. The Poet ends the stanza by asking the west wind to listen to him. In the fourth stanza the poet wants the West Wind to lift him like a ‘dead leaf,’ ‘swift cloud’ or even a ‘wave’. He wants to feel the ‘power’ and ‘strength’ of the wind. He wants to be like the ‘uncontrollable’ wind. He wishes to have the same relationship he had when he was young. The stanza ends with the line - I fall _______________________________________________________. Time has made him tired and old, but he wants the West Wind to be ‘timeless, swift and proud’. In the fifth stanza, he wants the West Wind to turn him into a musical instrument. He’ll be the instrument, and the West Wind will play its own music on him. They together will sweet, melancholy, autumn music. The poet 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. 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. 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 poem ends with the question – If death and decay can come at the end of something then there is always a rebirth and chance for hope.