Question

Summary of west wind

Answer 1

A first-person persona addresses the west wind in five stanzas. It is strong and fearsome. In the first stanza, the wind blows the leaves of autumn. In the second stanza, the wind blows the clouds in the sky. In the third stanza, the wind blows across an island and the waves of the sea. In the fourth stanza, the persona imagines being the leaf, cloud, or wave, sharing in the wind’s strength. He desires to be lifted up rather than caught low on “the thorns of life,” for he sees himself as like the wind: “tameless, and swift, and proud.” In the final stanza, he asks the wind to play upon him like a lyre; he wants to share the wind’s fierce spirit. In turn, he would have the power to spread his verse throughout the world, reawakening it.
Analysis

The poet is directing his speech to the wind and all that it has the power to do as it takes charge of the rest of nature and blows across the earth and through the seasons, able both to preserve and to destroy all in its path. The wind takes control over clouds, seas, weather, and more. The poet offers that the wind over the Mediterranean Sea was an inspiration for the poem. Recognizing its power, the wind becomes a metaphor for nature’s awe-inspiring spirit. By the final stanza, the speaker has come to terms with the wind’s power over him, and he requests inspiration and subjectivity. He looks to nature’s power to assist him in his work of poetry and prays that the wind will deliver his words across the land and through time as it does with all other objects in nature.

The form of the poem is consistent in pattern. Each stanza is fourteen lines in length, using the rhyming pattern of aba bcb cdc ded ee. This is called terza rima, the form used by Dante in his Divine Comedy.

Keeping in mind that this is an ode, a choral celebration, the tone of the speaker understandably includes excitement, pleasure, joy, and hope. Shelley draws a parallel between the seasonal cycles of the wind and that of his ever-changing spirit. Here, nature, in the form of the wind, is presented, according to Abrams “as the outer correspondent to an inner change from apathy to spiritual vitality, and from imaginative sterility to a burst of creative power.”

Thematically, then, this poem is about the inspiration Shelley draws from nature. The “breath of autumn being” is Shelley’s atheistic version of the Christian Holy Spirit. Instead of relying on traditional religion, Shelley focuses his praise around the wind’s role in the various cycles in nature—death, regeneration, “preservation,” and “destruction.” The speaker begins by praising the wind, using anthropomorphic techniques (wintry bed, chariots, corpses, and clarions) to personalize the great natural spirit in hopes that it will somehow heed his plea. The speaker is aware of his own mortality and the immortality of his subject. This drives him to beg that he too can be inspired (“make me thy lyre”) and carried (“be through my lips to unawakened earth”) through land and time.

Answer 2

Masefield recalls the sight of the west lands and the old brown hills when viewed from his native hometown. Tears fell down when he reminds the memorable movements of west winds . He can feel the warm wind blowing from the west and carries with it the sounds that are full of birds’ songs.
The vast area of apple orchards produces the fresh air with an aroma of wine. There is also a vast stretch of meadow that is covered with clean, cool and deep green grass. In the day time there are plenty of thrushes singing from their nests; whistling and singing with a clear, soft note like that of a flute.
The west wind declares that it is the blossoming time of April and the white cleansing of May. The summer rain is soft and warm. It gives a wake-up call to him to come home from wherever he is .
The bright sunny days are with some clouds in sky . The wild bees fly about with care-free hearts to see the merry spirit of spring again. The young corn has become green and everywhere around the field, the rabbits run in delight. Truly such a marvelous sight is like a song to any man’s soul .
In the west lands above the green wheat, there are innumerable larks singing. The west wind carries with it the sound of music that is full of bird’s cries. Masefield assures all his friends a quiet rest for their tired feet, balms for bruised hearts and sleep for aching eyes.
Masefield finally makes a resolute decision to return home westward and tread on the white road of truth. To reach his destination that is filled with the cool and green grass where he can rest his heart and head. The fine land that is filled with violets, warm hearts and thrushes songs is the west land where he belongs.