English notes

A Critical Analysis of Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ depicts the theme of obsession and the success of that obsessed mind to get rid of its obsession thinking about the promises which the speaker must keep. Here the most important part lies in the symbolism of ‘conscience’ by the ‘little horse’. This conscience compels the badly obsessed mind to think and in its success the mind thinks and realizes the pointlessness of being obsessed. Frost presents the speaker of the poem as a horse rider who is tempted to stay longer stopping by a lovely scenario of a snowy evening. But his little horse’ understanding of the futility to stay there and shaking of its body, shakes the mind of the traveler and he realizes the pull of obligations and the considerable distance yet to be travelled. This stopping resembles the theme of obsession as an obsessed mind stops thinking of anything else without the desired object and the realization of the mind in the last stanza suggests the success of it to get rid of the obsession. In the very first stanza Frost talks about ‘woods’ which may be an area where there are many trees but the area does not belong to the narrator or the speaker of the poem. He, on his way, suddenly stops in a woody area of someone else whom the speaker knows. Even the speaker knows that his stopping in that area will be unknown to the actual owner, who lives in the village. Frost begins-               “Whose woods these are I think I know                His house is in the village, though;                He will not see me stopping here                To watch his woods fill up with snow.” The last line describes the cause of stopping in this area and, that is, to watch the beauty, the magnificence of the woods’ filling up with snow. These four lines, therefore, express a totally obsessed mind and the reason of obsession is the term ‘beauty’ which is very common in the case of obsession.  The poet may want to exemplify the thousands of people who pass their whole life hankering after beauty or rather subjectivity.  These kinds of people do not make a quest for objectivity which is the beauty in itself as the realm of objective beauty is far away from their thinking.  They cannot be a true seeker of knowledge which lies in objectivity. An obsessed mind never understands that its obsession is mere subjectivity and it is totally pointless. This obsessed mind, therefore, stops thinking practically just like the traveler in this poem stops in an area where he should not stop and stare at the beauty of that place. The obsessed mind cannot understand the danger which he might encounter stopping there. This mind is only emotional which always is mastered by its senses. This can also be interpreted in a somewhat different way. It is considered that human mind always posses the intention to touch or glut something which is prohibited. Anything that is prohibited seems a matter of supreme interest to mankind. Here the speaker stops in a place which is not his own and of another people known to him. He thinks that there is no harm in stopping here because the master of that place will not see him. So, the speaker gets into a prohibited area and gluts the beauty of woods filling up with snow. This beauty of the lovely snowy evening can be interpreted as the intention of human mind to consider everything beautiful which is but of others object. The house of a friend seems more beautiful or the wife of a neighbor seems more attractive. Here also the traveler stops in a place of others belonging thinking that it is very beautiful.  It is like the myth of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve used to have all the blessings being in heaven but they finally show their characters by eating the forbidden fruit. The obsession of Adam and Eve regarding the forbidden apple can be compared to the obsession of the speaker of this poem as in both cases the human mind is involved in doing something prohibited: Adam and Eve eat the forbidden apple and the speaker here stops in a place where he should not be. The universal human nature of curiosity comes here as the main object. In the second stanza Frost introduces the ‘little horse’ to symbolize the conscience. This little horse is anxious for his master who has stopped in a place where there is no farmhouse near. And the last two lines give a description of the evening and the surroundings of the place. Frost says-               “My little horse must think it queer               To stop without a farmhouse near               Between the woods and frozen lake               The darkest evening of the year.”   So, the place is a distant place from the society, village, and responsibility as there is no farmhouse near and the evening which seems fascinating to the speaker, is the ‘darkest’ evening of the year. The place is “[b]etween woods and frozen lake”. So, to rest in a place like this will surely be dangerous. But to the horse rider of this poem all these ‘darkest evening’, ‘frozen lake’ seem untouchable as he is obsessed with the seductive beauty of the place. His little horse in fact seems conscious about the danger of this place and it is surely not obsessed like its master. This little horse can be interpreted as the ‘conscience’. A patient thinking about the symbolism of a man on his horse will more easily lead to the depth of the interpretation of conscience. If humans are considered as a traveler in his life, their conscience should be the vehicle of them to travel all through the life. Only conscience makes human to think about right and wrong, selfishness and promises. Every human has to face his conscience to make a decision whether it is right or wrong. Sometimes human fails to think practically and logically, and gets penetrated by the outburst of his desire. In these situations, only his conscience can show a human a path to overcome his faulty thinking and compel him to act logically. Here Frost through the symbolism of ‘little horse’ shows the conscience in its business to remind his physical master about the faulty decision to rest in a place of danger. All the negative imageries such as ‘frozen lake’, ‘darkest evening’ clarify the danger of this place. These negative images make the reader think how the place can be seemed lovely. Again the universal human nature is shown up in its color. Every evil thing has a seductive and beautiful look to mesmerize the people. Here the place has the same kind of look to attract the rider. That is why the horse rider is also in no hurry to think that there is no farmhouse near and it will be dangerous to stop there. But his conscience being aware thinks it ‘queer’ to stop in a place like that. So, the battle of conscience is begun in this stanza to take its physical entity to the right path. In the third stanza Frost presents how the conscience compels human mind to make it aware of the possible danger and what the physical entity has to do. Here the little horse shakes its body to make his master think about the mistake of him. Frost writes-                   “He gives his harness bells a shake                   To ask if there is some mistake.                   The only other sounds the sweep                   Of easy wind and downy flake.” When the conscience fails to show its master his fault in an easy way, it compels hard to raise its voice inside him. Here the horse shakes its body and this shaking is very significant as this is the last thing a conscience can do to make the human mind realize. By this shaking the horse has tried its best to shake the whole thinking of its master and make his master rethink which unquestionably suggests that the conscience is in its utmost attempt to take the human mind to the way it should be. The last two lines of this stanza again remind the reader about the danger of this place as there remain the sounds of snowfall. This snowfall though seems easy and nice, has a dreadful freezing effect in its surrounding. In this freezing area, the rider will die if he stays longer. Thus Frost suggests the violence in innocence. The snowfall’s violent and destructive look is disguised in its lovely innocent appearance. The conscience is nothing but trying to show this truth. Both these second and the third stanzas can be interpreted in Freudian Psychology. If the stopping of the rider is interpreted as an impulsive nature of the ‘Id’, the ‘little horse’ should be the ‘ego’ which makes a barrier between them. Ego tries to control the impulse of the id and behaves logically and practically where id is illogical. When the desire or impulse of ‘id’ gets stronger, the ‘ego’ tries harder. And this harder attempt is the shaking of the body of the horse. So, it can be said that the battle between ‘id’ and ‘ego’ takes place in these two stanzas.     Finally, in the last stanza depicts the ‘realization’ of the human mind that he is in the wrong path and he remembers what he really needs to do. The ‘ego’ wins the battle to make the rider realize and get rid of its obsession. Frost says-               “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,                 But I have promises to keep,                 And miles to go before I sleep,                    And miles to go before I sleep.” The obsessed mind finally realizes that the woods or his desired objects are lovely but they are also ‘dark’ and ‘deep’. The darkness and depth clearly suggests the evil here and the rider is no more to be mesmerized by the evil beauty. He remembers his promises which he has to keep. These promises can be the promises to himself to make his life worthy, or promises to the family or may be the state. In a nutshell, it can be his ‘responsibilities’ which he says ‘his promises’. In this stopping here he had almost forgotten them but at last he remembers them by the attempt of his horse or the conscience. He knows that he has yet to travel a long way before he sleeps. As he must sleep someday, he must go on travelling as long as he possesses his strength. If his ‘sleeping’ is considered as ‘his death’, the idea seems more clear. He has to go on living life before he dies and he has to make his promises kept meanwhile. He has to pass through all the obstacles and falsehood in his way to make his life worthy before he dies. He must fulfill his goal before he dies. So, he is not to be obsessed when the youth in its full strength prevails in him. He will be doing his job as long as he lives and as long as the blood in him is in its full swing. Thus Frost finishes a masterful presentation of obsession and freedom from obsession. The poem presents not just a traveler being mesmerized rather it presents the universal human character. And here lies the significance of the journey of human life. MY HEART LEAPS The speaker is telling us about the feeling he gets, has always gotten, and will always get when he sees a rainbow in the sky: his heart rejoices. He says that if he were ever to stop feeling this joy, he'd want to die. He presents the paradox (contradictory statement) that the child is the father of the man. In other words, our adult selves still contain the kernel of our childhood selves. He wants his days to be, perhaps, like the days of a child, filled with—and tied together by—a reverence for nature. Line 7 The Child is father of the Man; The speaker has shown us how important it is that something that thrilled him when he was young continues to thrill him when he grows old. He is saying here that his childhood formed who he is as an adult—his self, as a child, fathered, or gave birth to, his adult self. It seems the speaker treasures the fact that he still has a childlike capacity for wonder. Also note the capitalization of the words "Child" and "Man" in this line. This is a way to draw attention to the general truth of the line. It is meant to have a wider meaning than just in the speaker's life. A rainbow brings out the child in all of us. Lines 8-9 And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. The speaker now expresses that he hopes nature will tie his days together forever, as we can imagine a child's days would be tied together by playing outside. What do we mean by tied together? Well, they would all have the same thing in common. Think about when you went to the same park to play, every day of summer vacation. That experience tied your summer together. Well, here the speaker wants all of his days to feature this same feeling of wonder for the natural world. We suspect that the speaker doesn't mean literal days here, but rather his time on earth—his life. The glue, or rope, between these days is "natural piety." There are a few different ways to interpret this phrase. Piety normally has a religious connotation. Someone who follows the laws of their religion and is very devoted to God would be called pious. So we might interpret "natural piety" as a religion that is natural, or not forced. But there's not really much else about religion in this poem, so that interpretation seems a little off. What if "natural" referred not to something being genuine and sincere, but to the object of the piety? We think the speaker wants his days to be tied together by reverence and piety toward the natural world, rather than toward religion. These two lines sort of put the rest of the poem in context. The rainbow, which thrills the speaker throughout his life, is an example of a form of natural piety, his sense of joy and wonder at the natural world. That sense is what he hopes to experience for the rest of his days, his time on earth. ON HIS BLINDNESS – JOHN MILTON Lines 1-2 When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, The speaker thinks about how all of his light has been used up ("spent") before even half his life is over. As a man without light, he now lives in a world that is both "dark and wide." The first word of the poem, "When," gives us an idea of the structure of the sentence that will follow. The structure is, "When this happens, that happens." As in, "When I broke the glass, I had to find a broom to sweep it up." But be careful – the second part of the sentence doesn't come until lines 7 and 8. Milton's audience was more used to reading dense and complicated sentences, so you'll want to take the first seven lines slowly. (That's OK, we also think Milton's audience would have had a doozy of a time figuring out text messaging.) Most readers believe that the poem is clearly about Milton's blindness, but the poem never directly refers to blindness or even vision. Instead, we think that "light" is a metaphor for vision. The metaphor is complicated. The speaker says that his light can be "spent," and this word suggests that he is thinking of something like an oil lamp. The light is "spent" when the oil in the lamp runs out. To make a contemporary comparison, it would be like someone comparing his vision to a flashlight that runs out of batteries before it is supposed to. Milton is suggesting that he got a bad deal. The word "spent" also makes us think of money. Milton is reflecting on how he has used or "spent" his vision, now that it is gone. Has he used it wisely, or did he fritter it away because he thought it would never run out? The word "ere" means "before." How does Milton know that he became blind before his life was halfway over? For this to be true, wouldn't he have to be some kind of psychic who knew when he was going to die? The usual explanation of this line is that Milton guesses roughly how long he will live. Milton went completely blind at the age of 42. Finally, calling the world "dark and wide" makes it sound like a scary place, doesn't it? Interestingly, Milton makes it seem as if the world has run out of light, rather than growing dark because of any blindness on his part. Lines 3-4 And that one Talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, […] These lines are the trickiest in the entire poem, because they appear to be simpler then they are. The key word is "talent." You probably read "talent" and think of skills like throwing a perfect spiral or being a piano prodigy. But there's a double meaning intended for people who know history or Biblical scripture. In the ancient world, a "talent" was also a standard of weight used to measure money, just as a "pound" is a measure of both weight and currency. You can read Matthew 25 (it's short), but here's our brief summary of "The Parable of Talents." A lord gives three of his servants some money ("talents") to hold on to when he leaves for a trip. Two of the servants use the money to gain more money for their master. (In contemporary language, we'd call this 'investment.') But the third servant just buries the money, the ancient equivalent of hiding it under your mattress. When the lord returns, he's happy with the first two servants and gives them more responsibilities, but furious with the third servant. He exiles the third servant into the "darkness," which is the equivalent of "death." When Milton says that talent is "death to hide," he is referring to the money in the Biblical story and also to his own "talent," in the sense of a skill or trade. There is no way to tell what specific talent he means, but our guess would be his intelligence and his writing and reading skills, which he had used in service of Oliver Cromwell's government. This "talent" is "lodged" or buried within the speaker just like the money in the story. It cannot be used to make greater profit. Lines 4-6 […] though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; The speaker has just told us that his talent is as useless as money buried in the desert, but now he says that his uselessness has nothing to do with a lack of will. To the contrary, his soul desires (is "bent") to use his skills in the service of his "Maker," God. When he is faced with God, he wants to have a record of accomplishment to show Him. God is being compared with the lord from the "Parable of the Talents" in Matthew 25. When God "returns" to him like the master in the parable, the speaker wants to show that he has used his talents profitably. The word "account" here means both" story" and "a record of activities with money." If the speaker turns out to have wasted his profits, he worries that God will scold or "chide" him. And if God is anything like the lord from the parable, the speaker could get cast into a darkness even more fearful than the one created by his blindness. Lines 7-8 "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask. […] It has taken the speaker six lines to get through the part of the sentence that begins "When." Now he goes on to say what happens "when" he thinks about all the stuff he has described above. Namely, he wonders if God demands that people undertake hard, physical work, or "day-labour," when they don't have any light. The speaker doesn't have any light because he's blind, but in Milton's metaphor he compares this condition to having to do work at night that you would normally do during the day – like, say, building a house or plowing a field. The first section of the poem is completed by the words "I fondly ask." The word "fondly" means "foolishly," not "lovingly." The speaker accuses himself of being a idiot for even thinking this question. Fortunately, "patience" steps in to prevent his foolishness. Lines 8-10 […] But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts; who best "Patience" to the rescue! Patience is personified as someone who can talk sense into the speaker. Patience is often personified in Christian art because of its role in helping one to achieve important virtues like courage and wisdom. The speaker is about to "murmur" his foolish question about whether God would be so cruel as to make impossible demands of work, but then his patience steps in to stop him. The rest of the poem is the reply made by patience. First, patience points out that God does not need anything. God is complete and perfect. He doesn't need work or talents ("gifts") of any kind. Line 11 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. […] Patience now scores its second point in the rebuttal to the speaker. Patience argues that those people are the best servants of God who allow their fates to be linked with and controlled by God, as if they were wearing a yoke. Essentially, this means accepting things as they come, especially suffering and misfortune. A "yoke" is a wood frame that is placed around the necks of farm animals, like oxen, so that they can be directed. Patience doesn't want to make God sound like a slave driver, so God's yoke is called "mild," or not-that-bad. It's not how much you have to show for your time on earth that counts, it's how you handle your submission to God. Lines 11-14 […] His state Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o'er Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait." The final point made by patience is that God is like a king, not a lord, so the "Parable of the Talents" does not strictly apply. Lords need everyone on their estates to work for them; they usually don't have the resources to spend on keeping servants just to stand around and wait on them. Kings, on the other hand, have unlimited resources, especially if they control a "state" as large as the entire earth. With His kingly status, God has plenty of minions to do His "bidding" by rushing from place to place – that is, doing things that require light and vision. It doesn't make a difference whether one more person fulfills the role or not. But kings also have people who "wait" on them, who stand in a state of readiness until their action is needed. To summarize, we believe that the sentence, "His state is kingly," is meant to contrast with the "lordly" state of the master of the Biblical parable in Matthew 25. This being Milton, of course, "wait" can also have the meaning of waiting for something to happen, as in, "I waited for the bus." What would the speaker be waiting for? The Second Comingof Jesus? The end of history? We don't know because the poem only suggests this meaning oh-so-vaguely. The word "post" here just means "to travel quickly." That's why the mail is often referred to as the "post," because you're supposed to travel quickly to deliver it. The poem ends with a vindication of the speaker's passivity, which has been forced on him by his blindness. A Poison Tree' A Poison Tree is a short and deceptively simple poem about repressing anger and the consequences of doing so. The speaker tells of how they fail to communicate their wrath to their foe and how this continues to grow until it develops into poisonous hatred. The speaker describes how when they were angry with a friend, they talked to their friend about the issue which helped them to overcome their anger. However, the speaker was unable to do the same with an enemy and this leads to developing resentment and an even stronger degree of hatred. An extended metaphor of a tree growing in the speaker's garden demonstrates how the anger continues to grow. In the lines 'And I water'd it in fears' and 'And I sunned it with smiles' the speaker actively cultivates the tree/anger. Eventually the anger blossoms into a poisoned fruit, the enemy eats the fruit and dies and the speaker seems to be glad of this. However, there is also a sense that they see the destructiveness of what has occurred. As the first lines acknowledge, we can easily overcome our anger if we communicate it properly. ODE TO THE WEST WIND The speaker of the poem appeals to the West Wind to infuse him with a new spirit and a new power to spread his ideas. In order to invoke the West Wind, he lists a series of things the wind has done that illustrate its power: driving away the autumn leaves, placing seeds in the earth, bringing thunderstorms and the cyclical "death" of the natural world, and stirring up the seas and oceans. The speaker wishes that the wind could affect him the way it does leaves and clouds and waves. Because it can’t, he asks the wind to play him like an instrument, bringing out his sadness in its own musical lament. Maybe the wind can even help him to send his ideas all over the world; even if they’re not powerful in their own right, his ideas might inspire others. The sad music that the wind will play on him will become a prophecy. The West Wind of autumn brings on a cold, barren period of winter, but isn’t winter always followed by a spring? Lines 1-5 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: The speaker appeals to the West Wind four times in this first canto, or section, of the poem. (We don’t find out what he’s actually asking the wind to do for him until the end of the canto.) Lines 1-5 are the first appeal, in which the speaker describes the West Wind as the breath of Autumn. Like a magician banishing ghosts or evil spirits, the West Wind sweeps away the dead leaves. These dead leaves are multicolored, but not beautiful in the way we usually think of autumn leaves – their colors are weird and ominous and seem almost diseased (like "pestilence-stricken multitudes"). Lines 5-8 O Thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until The speaker appeals to the West Wind a second time. This time, the West Wind is described as carrying seeds to their grave-like places in the ground, where they’ll stay until the spring wind comes and revives them. The wind burying seeds in the ground is like a charioteer driving corpses to their graves. Lines 8-12 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 (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Once the West Wind has carried the seeds into the ground, they lie there all winter, and then are woken by the spring wind. Shelley thinks of the spring wind as blue (or, to be specific, "azure"). The spring wind seems to be the cause of all the regeneration and flowering that takes place in that season. It blows a "clarion" (a kind of trumpet) and causes all the seeds to bloom. It fills both "plain and hill" with "living hues and odours." It also opens buds into flowers the way a shepherd drives sheep. Lines 13-14 Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear! The speaker appeals to the West Wind twice more, describing it as a "Wild Spirit" that’s everywhere at once. The West Wind is both "Destroyer and Preserver"; it brings the death of winter, but also makes possible the regeneration of spring. Now we find out (sort of) what the speaker wants the wind to do: "hear, oh, hear!" For the moment, that’s all he’s asking – just to be listened to. By the wind. Lines 15-18 Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 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 The speaker continues to describe the West Wind. This time, he describes the wind as having clouds spread through it the way dead leaves float in a stream. Leaves fall from the branches of trees, and these clouds fall from the "branches" of the sky and the sea, which work together like "angels of rain and lightning" to create clouds and weather systems. Lines 18-23 Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. The speaker creates a complex simile describing the storm that the West Wind is bringing. The "locks of the approaching storm" – the thunderclouds, that is – are spread through the airy "blue surface" of the West Wind in the same way that the wild locks of hair on a Mænad wave around in the air. Got that? Let’s put it in SAT analogy form: thunderclouds are to the West Wind as a Mænad’s locks of hair are to the air. A Mænad is one of the wild, savage women who hang out with the god Dionysus in Greek mythology. The point here about Mænads is that, being wild and crazy, they don’t brush their hair much. Oh, and the poet reminds us that these Mænad-hair-like clouds go vertically all the way through the sky, from the horizon to the center. Lines 23-28 Thou Dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain and fire and hail will burst: O hear! The speaker develops a morbid metaphor to describe the power of the West Wind. The wind is described as a "dirge," or funeral song, to mark the death of the old year. The night that’s falling as the storm comes is going to be like a dark-domed tomb constructed of thunderclouds, lightning, and rain. The poet ends by asking the West Wind once again to "hear" him, but we don’t know yet what exactly he wants it to listen to. Lines 29-32 Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his chrystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay, The speaker tells us more about the West Wind’s wacky exploits: the Mediterranean Sea has lain calm and still during the summer, almost as though on vacation "beside a pumice isle in Baiæ’s bay," a holiday spot for the ancient Romans. But the West Wind has woken the Mediterranean, presumably by stirring him up and making the sea choppy and storm-tossed. The Mediterranean is personified here as male. Lines 33-36 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! During his summertime drowsiness, the Mediterranean has seen in his dreams the "old palaces and towers" along Baiæ’s bay, places that are now overgrown with plants so that they have become heartbreakingly picturesque. Lines 36-38 Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The speaker claims that the "level" Atlantic Ocean breaks itself into "chasms" for the West Wind. This is a poetic way of saying the wind disturbs the water, making waves, but it also suggests that the ocean is subservient to the West Wind’s amazing powers. Lines 38-42 Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! In the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the different kinds of marine plants hear the West Wind high above and "suddenly grow gray with fear" and thrash around, harming themselves in the process. Once again, the speaker ends all these descriptions of the West Wind by asking it to "hear" him. Lines 43-47 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 The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O Uncontrollable! The speaker begins to describe his own desires more clearly. He wishes he were a "dead leaf" or a "swift cloud" that the West Wind could carry, or a wave that would feel its "power" and "strength." He imagines this would make him almost as free as the "uncontrollable" West Wind itself. Lines 47-51 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 Scarce seemed a vision; The speaker is willing to compromise: even if he can’t be a leaf or a cloud, he wishes he could at least have the same relationship to the wind that he had when he was young, when the two were "comrade[s]." When he was young, the speaker felt like it was possible for him to be faster and more powerful than the West Wind. Lines 51-53 I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! The speaker claims that, if he could have been a leaf or cloud on the West Wind, or felt young and powerful again, he wouldn’t be appealing to the West Wind now for its help. He begs the wind to treat him the way it does natural objects like waves, leaves and clouds. Lines 54-56 I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. The speaker exclaims, "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" He explains that the passage of time has weighed him down and bowed (but not yet broken) his spirit, which started out "tameless, and swift, and proud," just like the West Wind itself. Lines 57-58 Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! Finally, the speaker asks the West Wind for something: he wants the wind to turn him into its lyre. This image is related to the æolian harp, a common metaphor in Romantic poetry. The æolian harp is sort of like a stringed version of a wind chime; it’s an instrument that you only have to put out in the breeze and nature will play its own tunes. Here Shelley’s speaker describes himself as the harp, or "lyre," that the wind will play. He’ll be the instrument, and the West Wind will play its own music on him, just as it does in the branches of trees in the forest. That way, it won’t matter that he’s metaphorically losing his leaves. Lines 59-61 The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. The speaker and the trees of the forest are both decaying – the trees are losing their leaves, and he’s been bowed down by life. But that doesn’t matter; if the wind plays both of them as instruments, they’ll make sweet, melancholy, autumn-ish music. Lines 61-62 Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Now the speaker changes tactics; instead of asking the wind to play him like an instrument, he asks the wind to become him. He wants the wind’s "fierce" spirit to unite with him entirely, or maybe even replace his own spirit. Lines 63-64 Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth! The speaker compares his thoughts to the dead leaves; perhaps the West Wind can drive his thoughts all over the world in the same way it moves the leaves, and they’ll become like a rich compost or mulch from which new growth can come in the spring. That way, even if his thoughts are garbage, at least that garbage can fertilize something better. Lines 65-67 And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! The speaker comes up with another metaphor to describe what he wants the wind to do to his thoughts, and this one isn’t about fertilizer. He describes his own words – perhaps the words of this very poem – as sparks and ashes that the wind will blow out into the world. The speaker himself is the "unextinguished hearth" from which the sparks fly; he’s a fire that hasn’t gone out yet, but is definitely waning. Lines 68-69 Be through my lips to unawakened Earth The trumpet of a prophecy! The speaker returns to the metaphor of the wind playing him as an instrument, but this time he describes his mouth as a trumpet through which the wind will blow its own prophecy. Lines 69-70 O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? The speaker ends by asking the wind a question that seems very simple: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" The symbolic weight that he’s attached to the seasons, however, makes us realize that this is more than a question about the wheel of the year. He’s asking whether or not the death and decay that come at the end of something always mean that a rebirth is around the corner. He’s hoping that’s true, because he can feel himself decaying.