Classic Poem

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
— — Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged 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
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
— — With living hues and odors plain and hill:
Wild Spirit which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
— — 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 uplighted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even 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 sepulcher,
— — Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: Oh hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
— — The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled 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
— — 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
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh, 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
— — 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
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!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee — tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, 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 unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
— — Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?