| |
| 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 |
5 |
| Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed |
|
| The winge´d seeds, where they lie cold and low, |
|
| Each like a corpse within its grave, until |
|
| Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow |
|
| Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill |
10 |
| (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) |
|
| With living hues and odours plain and hill: |
|
| Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; |
|
| Destroyer and Preserver; Hear, O hear! |
|
| |
| Thou on whose stream, ’mid the steep sky’s commotion, |
15 |
| Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, |
|
| Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, |
|
| Angels of rain and lightning; there are spread |
|
| On the blue surface of thine airy surge, |
|
| Like the bright hair uplifted from the head |
20 |
| Of some fierce Maenad, ev’n from the dim verge |
|
| Of the horizon to the zenith’s height— |
|
| The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge |
|
| Of the dying year, to which this closing night |
|
| Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, |
25 |
| Vaulted with all thy congregated might, |
|
| Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere |
|
| Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear! |
|
| |
| Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams |
|
| The blue Mediterranean, where he lay |
30 |
| Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams, |
|
| Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, |
|
| And saw in sleep old palaces and towers |
|
| Quivering within the wave’s intenser day, |
|
| All overgrown with azure moss and flowers |
35 |
| So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou |
|
| For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers |
|
| Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below |
|
| The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear |
|
| The sapless foliage of the ocean, know |
40 |
| Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear |
|
| And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! |
|
| |
| 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 |
45 |
| The impulse of thy strength, only less free |
|
| Than Thou, O uncontrollable! If even |
|
| I were as in my boyhood, and could be |
|
| The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, |
|
| As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed |
50 |
| Scarce seem’d a vision, I would ne’er have striven |
|
| As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. |
|
| O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! |
|
| I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! |
|
| A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d |
55 |
| One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. |
|
| |
| Make me thy lyre, ev’n as the forest is: |
|
| What if my leaves are falling like its own! |
|
| The tumult of thy mighty harmonies |
|
| Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, |
60 |
| Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, |
|
| My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one! |
|
| Drive my dead thoughts over the universe |
|
| Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth; |
|
| And, by the incantation of this verse, |
65 |
| Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth |
|
| Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! |
|
| Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth |
|
| The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, |
|
| If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? |
70 |
| |
