Explain: “And, by the incantation of this verse, ............... If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

Explain:

“And, by the incantation of this verse,

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?”

Ans: In the concluding lines of the Ode to the West Wind, the poet invokes the energy of the west wind to regenerate him. He compares himself to the autumnal forest; like the forest he is in the 'sear', the yellow leaf of life." Hence, in this stanza he asks the wind to draw out from his mind the music that has been lying latent in him. The music like the autumnal music may be sad and sweet. But the music roused in him will create a powerful effect on humanity just as storm in the autumnal forest produces fierce noise. He wants to imbibe the explosive force of the west wind which is the symbol of the revolution. He wishes to completely identify himself with the west wind. If the west wind breathes into the poet its fierce and tameless energy, he would compose poems, whose magic of music will scatter his ideas and vision of a regenerate humanity all over the world. The poet then compares his mind to a hearth, which is glimmering with ideas; as the west wind scatters ashes and sparks from a hearth, so let it cast far and wide his ideas which are full of hopes for a regenerate humanity. Just as withered leaves quicken a new birth so his dead thoughts will bring in a regenerate humanity by the power of the west wind which is the symbol of revolution. Just as unextinguished hearth scatters ashes and sparks, so his dimly burning mind will scatter his dead thoughts, and thoughts already expressed to the rotten world. He will scatter his prophetic ideas, his vision of a regenerate humanity with a deep, trumpet-like voice. Just as in Nature Winter passes away yielding place to Spring, so the old world will go, and in its place will come a new world laden with fresh and sweet promises for suffering humanity.

The critic Sharip beautifully observes; "Autumnal decay and the barrenness of Winter may make the world desolate, but beyond lies waiting the Spring of another year. It is the ebb and flow, the endless 'baffling change of the great tide of humanity, which Shelley sings, as well as the death and exit of dreary regenerative seasons."

Shelley here sings in exquisite melody of the advent of millennium. Possessed by the creative principle, his dead thoughts become ashes and sparks to feed a new conflagration. The poem ends on a note of hope and triumph