Ode to the West Wind

Spring, summer, autumn, and winter are all accounted for in “Ode to the West Wind.” The poet treats the names of seasons like proper names, capitalizing the first letter when they’re invoked (Lines 1, 9, and 70). The West Wind is an autumnal creature (“though breath of Autumn’s being” [Line 1]). The associated imagery calls to mind a blustery fall day: dead leaves, whipping winds, an overcast sky, and a fierce storm. Winter is a dark bed where living things “lie cold and low” (Line 7) like “a corpse within its grave” (Line 8). Spring, autumn’s “azure sister” (Line 9), arrives with fanfare, and the natural world erupts in blossom. Summer is the only season that fails to appear as a noun, only surfacing once as an adjective (“his summer dreams” [Line 29]).

Summer and winter are sluggish seasons in “Ode to the West Wind.” In Canto 3, the Mediterranean sleeps, dreaming of ruins until the West Wind shakes it awake. Winter sleep is dreamless, akin to death. Spring features most prominently in the poem as a foil to the West Wind’s autumn. Autumn’s fearsome wind and storms, “black rain, and fire, and hail” (Line 28), usher in the death of winter.