The Dink Network

Help Needed!

August 21st 2007, 09:13 AM
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dinkme
Peasant He/Him India
 
I have my English test day after tomorrow and I really need to get good grades. But I have to study this poem titled "Ode to the West Wind" and I can't make head or tail of what it means. Can please some briefly explain the meaning of the following lines:
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 wingèd 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, O hear!

II

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 airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20

Of some fierce Mænad, 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: O hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30
Lull'd by the coil of his crystàlline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ'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: O hear!

IV

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

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 50
Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O! 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 55
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 60
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse, 65

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?
August 21st 2007, 02:16 PM
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Hasai
Peasant He/Him Finland
I want to have your abortion 
It means you have an English teacher who is overly-dramatic and utterly full of herself.

I suggest you respond in kind, with a flowery essay on how that poem made you feel and inspired you. Maybe you should even say that you actually had a dream about autumn leaves and wind the night after you read it.
August 21st 2007, 04:04 PM
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Christiaan
Bard They/Them Netherlands
Lazy bum 
http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&safe=off&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=Ode+to+the+west+wind+explanation&spell=1
August 21st 2007, 04:05 PM
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Wow. Explanation? You need a translation.
Chariotest? Skiey?

Not my kind of thing. Who wrote it?

Sorry I wasn't very helpful

Edit: Oh. Percy Shelley. Just saw Christiaan's link.
August 22nd 2007, 02:20 AM
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carrie2004
Peasant She/Her Canada
*chomp* 
Well, I only read the first stanza(is that what it's called?)
and I thought it was about how the west winds bring cooler
days in autumn, blowing the leaves off trees, preparing the
land for winter's sleep until, once again, in the Spring, the
same west wind blows warmer airs, bringing to life again
what has lain dormant through winter.

Honestly, I didn't like it enough to read the rest.
August 22nd 2007, 10:49 AM
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Sharp
Peasant She/Her Finland
 
Yeah, the whole poem was appraisal to the circle of life and seasons turning.. with some mentions of the route of the winds and how mighty yet gentle it was, etc. The rhythm was rather capturing, nice choice from your teacher - although a bit lengthy.

Having taken some high school English classes with mounds of poems and short stories to analyse, I believe this is not the first one you were given and as such you ought to do your own homework. Asking advice on a particular idea or even asking if someone had anything to add to your already-written analysis is OK, but copy-pasting 5 stanzas and asking us to do the work for you to save your English grades which undoubtedly will also be tested without the DN to help you out, ... I'm pissed.

Please do your own homework. It will help you with your English grade. Thank you.
August 22nd 2007, 11:37 AM
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skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Lol, Sharp!

...

Seid bereit!
August 26th 2007, 09:49 AM
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dinkme
Peasant He/Him India
 
Oops, I hadn't been to the Dink Network and had forgotten that I had asked for help here.

Well, I generally do my homework myself but I asked for assistance as I couldn't understand the deeper meaning of each and every line. I knew that Shelly had written about the cycle of seasons and how he had personified the West Wind etc but there were certain Canto's which didn't seem to make sense.

I had already asked my parents and practically everyone else and checked out the internet as well for any help but to to no avail. So I thought I may find someone here who took interest in poetry and Odes and had come across this one.

Well anyways, I still got an "A". Only one question related to this poem was asked so sorry for the hole episode.


August 27th 2007, 04:12 AM
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Sharp
Peasant She/Her Finland
 
Hey, it's ok. The main thing is that you did the thinking yourself (which sort of wasn't very clear in your post ), so I guess I can't complain much... Good for you with the A.