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

Explain: “Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! ......... One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.”

Explain:

“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 chain'd and bow'd

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.”

Ans: Shelley cries out in the anguish of his heart in the fourth stanza of the Ode to the West Wind. After describing the powerful impact of the west wind on earth, sky and sea, the poet passes to his own self. He is in sore need of the energizing influence of the west wind. Life and society have dealt roughly with him. Abandoned by the society, howled down by the critics, the poet feels that he is bleeding on the thorns of life. The weight of miseries has bent him to the ground. Hence his passionate appeal to the storm to lift him in the same manner as it has lifted the leaves of trees, the clouds of the sky and the waves of the sea. He wants to share the impetuosity and strength of the west wind. The poet also finds an affinity between his own soul and the storm. He, too, was one proud, impetuous and swift, but all his energies have been sapped by his struggle with the society. Therefore, the poet makes a passionate appeal to the west wind to breathe into him its energizing power.

In this stanza, the poet's own sense of oppression and constraint is related to wind's freedom and strength. The poet makes a magnificent union of himself with Nature and then passes to equally great self- description. He thus mingles himself and Nature together.

Explain: “Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams ........... All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!”

 Explain: 

“Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lull'd 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!”

Ans: In these lines Shelley describes the effect of the west wind on the sea. In Summer the Mediterranean remains perfectly calm under a blue sky. Hence the poet imagines that it falls asleep, being caught up in the whirling round of its clear and transparent water. Probably in its sleep it dreams of the ruined palaces and towers of the city of Baiae, which once stood on its shore and is now submerged in the sea. These ruins quiver gently when seen through the slight motion of the waves in the Summer weather. They are also overgrown with vegetation and sea-flowers, the fragrance of which is so intense that the senses are overpowered even in imagining it But in Autumn, the west wind rouses the sea from its summer repose and ruffles it with high waves.

These lines give an iridescent picture of the west wind. The poet imaginatively pictures the west wind as rousing the Mediterranean from his summer sleep. In other words, the Mediterranean which remains calm during Summer is terribly agitated when the west wind of Autumn blows through it. 

These lines testify to Shelley's myth-making power. The blue Mediterranean is personified and pictured as a sea-god sleeping and dreaming the whole Summer. He creates myths and relations just as the Greek did.