Ode to the West Wind

The poem consists of five stanzas each performing a definite function. Each canto consists of four tercets (ABA, BCB, CDC, DED) and a rhyming couplet (EE). The reader can also realize that the first three stanzas end with a refrain(oh, hear!)

In the fist stanza Shelley conveys the effects of the West Wind on the earth and mainly on the death leaves. Shelley begins his poem by addressing the "Wild West Wind".  He introduces the theme of death and compares the dead leaves to "ghosts"(line 3).  The imagery of "Pestilence-stricken multitudes" makes the reader aware that Shelley is addressing more than a pile of leaves. They carry to the wintry bed the seem that will emerge into a new life in spring. There follows the invocation of the poet who addresses the wind as a preserver and destroyer.

In the second stanza the poet conveys the effects of the wind on the sky and specifically on clouds.

He sees clouds swept along the sky like the leaves. These clouds are angels; messengers, of the rain and lightening that will come at night fall.

In the third stanza Shelley conveys the effects of the wind on the sea and namely on the waves.

The poet describes how the wind disturbed the the calm of the water of the Mediterraneam sea. In addition to this Shelley describes how the wind ruined the vegetation of the Atlantic sea.

In the fourth and fifth stanza shelling draws together the death-leaves of the first stanza, the clouds of the second and the waves of the third. They represent the desire for cessation and oblivion that accurse so frequently in his poetry. The yearning for swift liberty that the clouds have, so that he could combat the evils he wanted to destroy.

He fills he has last his boyhood's freedom, when everything seemed possible to him and that passing of time has tamed and enslaved him.

With using ode, Shelling wanted to send a message: he wanted to regenerate the society. To do this the poet wanted the power of the West Wind.

Conclusion by Wikipedia

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_the_West_Wind)

This poem is a highly controlled text about the role of the poet as the agent of political and moral change. This was a subject Shelley wrote a great deal about, especially around 1819, with this strongest version of it articulated the last famous lines of his "Defence of Poetry": "Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."