The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists.  The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it.—­[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])

[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]

1. 
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes:  O thou, 5
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill 10
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill: 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

2.  Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion, 15 Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning:  there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aery surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm.  Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:  oh, hear!

3.  Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30 Lulled 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 35
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!  Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves:  oh, hear!

4. 
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45