Explain: “Thou dirge Of the dying year, ........... Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!”

Explain:

“Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!”

Ans: In these lines taken from the second stanza of Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, the west wind is pictured as a mighty destroyer. The west wind blows in Autumn; the year begins to die. As the poet hears the tumult of the wind, it seems to him to sing the knell of the year. As the year will die soon, its tomb has also been built. The black night sky, overcast with the dense mass of clouds and vapours which will presently dissolve into rains, hail and lightning, will serve the purpose of the vault under which the dead year will lie buried. Stripped of metaphor, the lines may be said to give a vivid picture of an autumnal night. The sky is thick with the dense mass of black clouds and vapours; presently they will burst - rain, thunder, lightning and hail will follow, converting the earth into a vetirable inferno, while all the time the fierce storm will be rushing through the sky with a terrible wail. All these naturally suggest to the poet the thoughts of death, and he remembers, too, that Autumn, the season of nature's decay and death is just the beginning of the year.