Ode to the West Wind

“Ode to the West Wind” is a poem driven by a struggle to be heard. Through the first three cantos, the speaker makes three separate pleas for the West Wind to listen to his words. He makes himself clear at the end of the first canto by repeating the command: “hear, oh hear!” (Line 14), and yet he repeats himself two more times at the ends of the second and third cantos (Lines 28, 42). The speaker paints a portrait of a formidable force of nature capable of destruction, creation, and miraculous transformation, his sense of desperation growing all the while. When the first person “I” finally breaks through in the fourth canto, the speaker wistfully imagines himself as the subject of the West Wind’s domain: “a dead leaf thou mightest bear” (Line 43), “a swift cloud to fly with thee” (Line 44), and “a wave to pant beneath thy power” (Line 44).

The speaker has no choice but to make such earnest entreaties, as communing with the West Wind has only gotten harder since his childhood. The speaker suspects that he is going through a sort of autumn of his own and his time is short, so he finally names his desire. He wants the wind to make him a “lyre” (Line 57) so that it can take his words and spread them, “as from an unextinguish’d hearth / Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind” (Lines 66-67). His final question reveals his terror at and hope for the future. If winter is upon him, then spring, and its corresponding promise of new beginnings, inches that much closer. The speaker, having made his plea to the wind, may one day achieve his larger goal of being a prophet to future generations.

At the core of this poem is the question of art’s potential and the artist’s role in society. By composing this poem, the speaker demonstrates his belief that the right poem will shake him free, pull him out of his rut, and grant him access to the “wild” (Line 1) creative powers of the West Wind. Just to have a fraction of “the impulse of thy strength, only less free” (Line 46), is enough for the speaker. He never asks for dominion over the wind—only the ability to ride it. The speaker believes that creativity is not something to be mastered but befriended. The speaker articulates this mutual harmony in Canto 5: “Be thou, Spirit fierce / My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!” (Lines 71-72).

The speaker is self-consciously composing this poem to send his words, his ideas, into the future. May the “incantation of this verse” (Line 65) be the act that gives the speaker the voice of the wind. The last question of the poem reveals the poet’s lingering anxieties. Spring naturally follows winter, but the speaker undercuts this certainty with nervous phrasing: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” (Line 70). Winter here can refer to the end of the speaker’s mortal life, or his career, or it could mean he reaches a point when he can’t write any more poems—whatever comes first. If the poet’s entreaty goes unheard by the wind, or if it’s not powerful enough, he and his work will be left behind and forgotten. Still, there is optimism in his question that if what he hopes is true, his suffering can’t last forever.

“Ode to the West Wind” embodies several of the key traits of British Romanticism. The poet makes use of both Classical and Christian imagery, appropriating familiar stories and freely interpreting them to make something new. For example, the West Wind as the “breath” (Line 1) and the “Spirit” (Lines 13, 61, 62) echoes Old Testament descriptions of the divine (“the Spirit in a person, the breath of the almighty” [“Job 32:8 NIV.” Bible Gateway]). The reverent speaker asks for this spirit to make into him a lyre—an ancient Greek instrument commonly used as a symbol for music, lyrics, and poetry. On the theme of transcendence, the speaker of the poem ultimately asks for eternal life via communion with nature. Through the poem, the speaker moves from disharmony with the West Wind, begging for it to even lend him its ear, to a vision for their long and meaningful future together. This exemplifies the British Romantic ideal of “sympathetic connection between nature’s organic growth and human creativity” (The Editors. “British Romanticism.” Poetry Foundation, 2016). The speaker’s concern for the longevity of his work nods to a belief that individual creativity is of vital importance, another shared sentiment. Mundanity is the ultimate existential threat for this speaker. He asks the West Wind to “lift [him] as a wave, a leaf, a cloud” (Line 53) into freedom. This speaks broadly to the Romantic ideal of innovation and individual liberty, choosing to create and adhere to one’s own morals than to follow those imposed by society or institutions.