Ode to the West Wind

“Ode to the West Wind” is a poem driven by a struggle to be heard. Through the first three cantos, the speaker makes three separate pleas for the West Wind to listen to his words. He makes himself clear at the end of the first canto by repeating the command: “hear, oh hear!” (Line 14), and yet he repeats himself two more times at the ends of the second and third cantos (Lines 28, 42). The speaker paints a portrait of a formidable force of nature capable of destruction, creation, and miraculous transformation, his sense of desperation growing all the while. When the first person “I” finally breaks through in the fourth canto, the speaker wistfully imagines himself as the subject of the West Wind’s domain: “a dead leaf thou mightest bear” (Line 43), “a swift cloud to fly with thee” (Line 44), and “a wave to pant beneath thy power” (Line 44).

The speaker has no choice but to make such earnest entreaties, as communing with the West Wind has only gotten harder since his childhood. The speaker suspects that he is going through a sort of autumn of his own and his time is short, so he finally names his desire.