Ode to the West Wind

Summary
The speaker invokes the wild West Wind of autumn, which scatters the dead leaves and spreads
seeds so that they may be nurtured by the spring, and asks that the wind, a destroyer and
preserver, hear him. The speaker calls the wind the dirge Of the dying year, and describes how
it stirs up violent storms, and again implores it to hear him. The speaker says that the wind stirs the
!editerranean from his summer dreams, and cleaves the "tlantic into choppy chasms, making the
sapless foliage of the ocean tremble, and asks for a third time that it hear him.The speaker says
that if he were a dead leaf that the wind could bear, or a cloud it could carry, or a wave it could
push, or even if he were, as a boy, the comrade of the wind#s wandering over heaven, then he
would never have needed to pray to the wind and invoke its powers. $e pleads with the wind to lift
him as a wave, a leaf, a cloud%&for though he is like the wind at heart, untamable and proud&he
is now chained and bowed with the weight of his hours upon the earth.The speaker asks the wind to
make me thy lyre, to be his own Spirit, and to drive his thoughts across the universe, like
withered leaves, to 'uicken a new birth. $e asks the wind, by the incantation of this verse, to
scatter his words among mankind, to be the trumpet of a prophecy. Speaking both in regard to the
season and in regard to the effect upon mankind that he hopes his words to have, the speaker asks(
)f winter comes, can spring be far behind*
Form
+ach of the seven parts of Ode to the West Wind contains five stan,as&four three-line stan,as
and a two-line couplet, all metered in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme in each part follows a
pattern known as terza rima, the three-line rhyme scheme employed by .ante in his Divine
Comedy. )n the three-line terza rima stan,a, the first and third lines rhyme, and the middle line does
not/ then the end sound of that middle line is employed as the rhyme for the first and third lines in
the ne0t stan,a. The final couplet rhymes with the middle line of the last three-line stan,a. Thus
each of the seven parts of Ode to the West Wind follows this scheme( "1" 121 2.2 .+. ++.
Commentary
The wispy, fluid terza rima of Ode to the West Wind finds Shelley taking a long thematic leap
beyond the scope of $ymn to )ntellectual 1eauty, and incorporating his own art into his
meditation on beauty and the natural world. Shelley invokes the wind magically, describing its
power and its role as both destroyer and preserver, and asks the wind to sweep him out of his
torpor as a wave, a leaf, a cloud% )n the fifth section, the poet then takes a remarkable turn,
transforming the wind into a metaphor for his own art, the e0pressive capacity that drives dead
thoughts like withered leaves over the universe, to 'uicken a new birth&that is, to 'uicken the
coming of the spring. $ere the spring season is a metaphor for a spring of human consciousness,
imagination, liberty, or morality&all the things Shelley hoped his art could help to bring about in
the human mind. Shelley asks the wind to be his spirit, and in the same movement he makes it his
metaphorical spirit, his poetic faculty, which will play him like a musical instrument, the way the
wind strums the leaves of the trees. The thematic implication is significant( whereas the older
generation of 3omantic poets viewed nature as a source of truth and authentic e0perience, the
younger generation largely viewed nature as a source of beauty and aesthetic e0perience. )n this
poem, Shelley e0plicitly links nature with art by finding powerful natural metaphors with which to
e0press his ideas about the power, import, 'uality, and ultimate effect of aesthetic e0pression.
Ode on a 4recian 5rn
6
Summary
)n the first stan,a, the speaker stands before an ancient 4recian urn and addresses it. $e is
preoccupied with its depiction of pictures fro,en in time. )t is the still unravish#d bride of
'uietness, the foster-child of silence and slow time. $e also describes the urn as a historian
that can tell a story. $e wonders about the figures on the side of the urn and asks what legend they
depict and from where they come. $e looks at a picture that seems to depict a group of men
pursuing a group of women and wonders what their story could be( What mad pursuit* What
struggle to escape* What pipes and timbrels* What wild ecstasy*
Object2
)n the second stan,a, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man
playing a pipe, lying with his lover beneath a glade of trees. The speaker says that the piper#s
unheard melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time. $e tells
the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is fro,en in time, he should not grieve,
because her beauty will never fade. )n the third stan,a, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers
and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves. $e is happy for the piper because his songs
will be for ever new, and happy that the love of the boy and the girl will last forever, unlike
mortal love, which lapses into breathing human passion and eventually vanishes, leaving behind
only a burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
)n the fourth stan,a, the speaker e0amines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of villagers
leading a heifer to be sacrificed. $e wonders where they are going 7To what green altar, O
mysterious priest...8 and from where they have come. $e imagines their little town, empty of all its
citi,ens, and tells it that its streets will for evermore be silent, for those who have left it, fro,en on
the urn, will never return. )n the final stan,a, the speaker again addresses the urn itself, saying that
it, like +ternity, doth tease us out of thought. $e thinks that when his generation is long dead, the
urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson( 1eauty is truth, truth beauty. The
speaker says that that is the only thing the urn knows and the only thing it needs to know.
Form
Ode on a 4recian 5rn follows the same ode-stan,a structure as the Ode on !elancholy, though
it varies more the rhyme scheme of the last three lines of each stan,a. +ach of the five stan,as in
4recian 5rn is ten lines long, metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter, and divided into
a two part rhyme scheme, the last three lines of which are variable. The first seven lines of each
stan,a follow an "1"12.+ rhyme scheme, but the second occurrences of the 2.+ sounds do not
follow the same order. )n stan,a one, lines seven through ten are rhymed .2+/ in stan,a two, 2+./
in stan,as three and four, 2.+/ and in stan,a five, .2+, 9ust as in stan,a one. "s in other odes
7especially "utumn and !elancholy8, the two-part rhyme scheme 7the first part made of "1
rhymes, the second of 2.+ rhymes8 creates the sense of a two-part thematic structure as well. The
first four lines of each stan,a roughly define the sub9ect of the stan,a, and the last si0 roughly
e0plicate or develop it. 7"s in other odes, this is only a general rule, true of some stan,as more than
others/ stan,as such as the fifth do not connect rhyme scheme and thematic structure closely at all.8
Themes
)f the Ode to a :ightingale portrays ;eats#s speaker#s engagement with the fluid e0pressiveness
of music, the Ode on a 4recian 5rn portrays his attempt to engage with the static immobility of
sculpture. The 4recian urn, passed down through countless centuries to the time of the speaker#s
viewing, e0ists outside of time in the human sense&it does not age, it does not die, and indeed it is
Object 1
alien to all such concepts. )n the speaker#s meditation, this creates an intriguing parado0 for the
human figures carved into the side of the urn( They are free from time, but they are simultaneously
fro,en in time. They do not have to confront aging and death 7their love is for ever young8, but
neither can they have e0perience 7the youth can never kiss the maiden/ the figures in the procession
can never return to their homes8.The speaker attempts three times to engage with scenes carved into
the urn/ each time he asks different 'uestions of it. )n the first stan,a, he e0amines the picture of the
mad pursuit and wonders what actual story lies behind the picture( What men or gods are these*
What maidens loth* Of course, the urn can never tell him the whos, whats, whens, and wheres of
the stories it depicts, and the speaker is forced to abandon this line of 'uestioning.)n the second and
third stan,as, he e0amines the picture of the piper playing to his lover beneath the trees. $ere, the
speaker tries to imagine what the e0perience of the figures on the urn must be like/ he tries to
identify with them. $e is tempted by their escape from temporality and attracted to the eternal
newness of the piper#s unheard song and the eternally unchanging beauty of his lover. $e thinks
that their love is far above all transient human passion, which, in its se0ual e0pression, inevitably
leads to an abatement of intensity&when passion is satisfied, all that remains is a wearied
physicality( a sorrowful heart, a burning forehead, and a parching tongue. $is recollection of
these conditions seems to remind the speaker that he is inescapably sub9ect to them, and he
abandons his attempt to identify with the figures on the urn.)n the fourth stan,a, the speaker
attempts to think about the figures on the urn as though they were e0periencing human time,
imagining that their procession has an origin 7the little town8 and a destination 7the green altar8.
1ut all he can think is that the town will forever be deserted( )f these people have left their origin,
they will never return to it. )n this sense he confronts head-on the limits of static art/ if it is
impossible to learn from the urn the whos and wheres of the real story in the first stan,a, it is
impossible ever to know the origin and the destination of the figures on the urn in the fourth.)t is
true that the speaker shows a certain kind of progress in his successive attempts to engage with the
urn. $is idle curiosity in the first attempt gives way to a more deeply felt identification in the
second, and in the third, the speaker leaves his own concerns behind and thinks of the processional
purely on its own terms, thinking of the little town with a real and generous feeling. 1ut each
attempt ultimately ends in failure. The third attempt fails simply because there is nothing more to
say&once the speaker confronts the silence and eternal emptiness of the little town, he has reached
the limit of static art/ on this sub9ect, at least, there is nothing more the urn can tell him.)n the final
stan,a, the speaker presents the conclusions drawn from his three attempts to engage with the urn.
$e is overwhelmed by its e0istence outside of temporal change, with its ability to tease him out
of thought "s doth eternity. )f human life is a succession of hungry generations, as the speaker
suggests in :ightingale, the urn is a separate and self-contained world. )t can be a friend to
man, as the speaker says, but it cannot be mortal/ the kind of aesthetic connection the speaker
e0periences with the urn is ultimately insufficient to human life. The final two lines, in which the
speaker imagines the urn speaking its message to mankind&1eauty is truth, truth beauty, have
proved among the most difficult to interpret in the ;eats canon. "fter the urn utters the enigmatic
phrase 1eauty is truth, truth beauty, no one can say for sure who speaks the conclusion, that is
all <e know on earth, and all ye need to know. )t could be the speaker addressing the urn, and it
could be the urn addressing mankind. )f it is the speaker addressing the urn, then it would seem to
indicate his awareness of its limitations( The urn may not need to know anything beyond the
e'uation of beauty and truth, but the complications of human life make it impossible for such a
simple and self-contained phrase to e0press sufficiently anything about necessary human
knowledge. )f it is the urn addressing mankind, then the phrase has rather the weight of an
important lesson, as though beyond all the complications of human life, all human beings need to
know on earth is that beauty and truth are one and the same. )t is largely a matter of personal
interpretation which reading to accept.