Describe the summery of the poem Ode to the West Wind.

Answer:

Stanza 1: The West Wind is the very soul of Autumn. As it sweeps forward with violent rush it scatters the dead and decayed leaves of trees. It drives the ripe autumnal seeds underground where they lie buried all the winter. These seeds I will shoot forth into lively plants in spring and adorn the hills and plains with fragrant and colourful flowers. The West Wind is at once an agent of destruction and preservation.

Stanza 2: The West Wind is like a rushing, impetuous river flowing through the dark forests of the sky. The leaf-like clouds are shaken on the current of the wind. These clouds, that are the messengers of rain and lightning, are the locks of the stormy wind, as wild as those on the head of Macnad. The thick vapours that congregate in the sky on a stormy night look like the vault of the tomb for the dead year, while the terrible West Wind seems to sing the dirge of the dying year. (To speak plainly, the West Wind scatters the patches of clouds in the sky from the horizon to the zenith. These clouds bring rain and storm. The West Wind blows at the close of the year)

Stanza 3: The West Wind breaks the happy summer dreams of the moss-grown palaces and towers beneath the Mediterranean sea. It cuts its passage through the surface of the Atlantic. At the sound of the West Wind the trees and plants at the bottom of the ocean tremble in fear, and shed their leaves. (To speak plainly, the West Wind ruffles the calm and transparent waters of the Mediterranean sea and lashes up the Atlantic into rolling waves. The trees and plants at the bottom of the ocean shake as the mighty West Wind rushes over the ocean.)

Stanza 4: The poet wants to share the impetuous strength and energy of the West Wind, and asks it to lift him as it lifts the waves, leaves and clouds/He has lost much of his boyish impetuosity that used to make him run with the wind. He has suffered greatly from the ills and evils of life and he bleeds. The burden of life's misery has crushed his impetuous spirit and energy.

Stanza 5: The poet prays the West Wind to draw out the prophetic ideas now lying almost dead in his mind and spread them over the whole world, so that they can stir men to an intense longing for a better and regenerate world. Since the winter of misery has already come, the spring of happiness is sure to arrive soon.