Ode to the West Wind
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I
0 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: 0 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
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:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, 0 hear!
II
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
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
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
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: 0 hear!
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
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
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
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: 0 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
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, 0 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
Scarce seemed a vision; 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!
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.
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,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! 0 Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Checked The Washington Post in/out list for 2003. Wasn't on it in either column. Ahh, stability.
Maryland blew out Tennessee in the Peach Bowl. If only sports were more important in my life.
Dick Clark has definitely made a Dorian Grey pact with the Devil.
One more end-of-year survey:
Five personally significant events of 2002:
* Joining the staff of Green Man Review.
* Selling erotica professionally.
* Not quitting Trek reviewing gig.
* Outer Banks and Chicago trips with family.
* Writing slash for the first time in a decade really.
Five things I want to do in 2003:
* Sell a piece of writing that isn't an essay, review, interview or erotica.
* Go to London.
* Stop gaining weight.
* Stop thinking about all the violent things I would like to do to TL even though she has made life absolute hell for my family.
* See Return of the King.
Five things I don't want to do in 2003:
* Have writer's block.
* Lose touch with my long-distance friends who are drifting.
* Waste time thinking about doing things I could actually be doing.
* Spend money on things I don't really need.
* Lose control and do unto TL as she deserves.
Five things that 2002 taught me:
* American voters are just as stupid as I always feared.
* Sometimes people really do live up to your very worst expectations.
* I am capable of incredible violence when my family is threatened.
* I have an incredibly strong marriage, the value of which I cannot overstate.
* As treatment for emotional trauma, obsession can be better than medication.
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