WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: Ode to the West Wind, Part Two

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Today, Erika Kyba reads the conclusion of Percy Shelley's Ode to the West Wind. We see the poet recognize his mortality and surrender himself and his work to the autumnal spirit. However, he hopes that the wind's destruction will ultimately bring renewal.

to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're concluding our journey through Percy Shelley's ode to the West Wind. In this excerpt, Shelley's ode takes a more personal turn, as he expresses his own relation to the wild west wind. If you'll recall from the last episode, the earlier parts of the poem set up how the autuminal winds clear out the dead and decadence so that new life can arise. Here, Shelley recognizes that he is part of the decay that the west wind will carry away. He observes in part five that, symbolically speaking, his leaves are falling like those of a forest. And indeed, Shelley's health was steadily worsening when he wrote this, and death would come

for him just three years later. But his physical health is not the only thing that has seen a decline. Shelley likens his spiritual state when he was a boy to the wind, uncontrollable and free. Now, however, he feels chained by the weight of hours, by the multitude of painful life experiences he has undergone, and he longs to be proud and untamable like the wind again. His solution is to completely surrender himself to the autumnal spirit rather than fight it, even though this means reconciling himself to the decay of his earthly life. His hope is that the West Wind will drive his dead thoughts over the earth in order to quicken a new birth, to inspire the next generations with his writing even beyond the grave.

Note how Shelley describes even his thoughts as dead. He knows that though he is riding high on the wave of romanticism, this literary movement will eventually give way to the next one, and his poetry will no longer conform to the style of the moment. His wish is not for his work to be always at the pinnacle. What he wants is to awaken creative powers in new authors with his legacy. With all that said, let's dive in. Ode to the West Wind by Percy Shelley. Part 4. If I were a dead leaf thou mightst bear, If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee, A wave to pant beneath thy power And share 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 sky-y speed, scarce seemed a vision, I would ne'er have striven as thus With thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud. I fall upon the thorns of life I bleed

Part 5 Make me thy liar Even 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 Sweet though in sadness Be thou spirit fierce

My spirit Be thou me impetuous one Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves To quicken a new birth and by the incantation of this verse scatter as from an unexinguished heart ashes and sparks my words among mankind be through my lips to unawakened earth the trumpet of a prophecy oh wind if winter comes can spring be far behind you've been listening to the poetry fix with erika kaiba if you enjoyed this episode consider following the poetry fix on spotify youtube or apple podcasts And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to thepoetryfix at gmail.com.

Join me next week and we'll be reading John Dunn's Holy Sonnet 12.