Ode To The West Wind - Shelley From analyzing the layout the reader understands that the poem consists of five sections, each performing a definite function. The reader can also realize that the first three stanzas end with ”oh hear”.. In the first stanza P. B. Shelley conveys the effects of the West wind on the earth and namely on the dead leaves. In the second stanza the poet conveys the effect of the wind on the sky and specifically on the clouds. In the third stanza the effect of the wind on the sea and namely on the waves. The fourth stanza has the task to re-organize and drawn together all the previous elements. The fifth stanza is an invocation to the wind so that the intelligent reader may wonder why the poet makes an invocation to the wind. Shelley watched the windy sky from a wood beside the Arno. The west wind - the very essence of Autumn - was driving the dead, but multi-coloured leaves along. Two images bring the scene to life: the leaves are like ghost, pursued by an enchanter, they are like a great crowd of people fleeing, panic-stricken, in time of plague. But the leaves are not doomed to death like the "pestilence-stricken multitudes", they carry to the "wintry bed" the seeds that will emerge into new life in spring "destroyer and preserver". In the second stanza Shelley observes more closely the effects of the wind on the sky. He sees bits of detached clouds being swept along like the leaves and behind them, streaming up from the horizon, streaks and trails of clouds which he later compares to locks of air. This clouds are angels (in the sense of messengers) of the rain and lightening that will come at night fell. In the third stanza Shelley visualizes how the wind disturbed the typical calm of the Mediterranean Sea personified as a languid form. The moods and the tone change again, when the poet pictures how the West wind tore chasms in the Atlantic ocean, so violent that in the depths of the sea, the vegetation shooks, as with fear and shed its "sapless foliage". Shelley also appeals to the language of sense impressions (hearing, sight, smell, touch). In the fourth and fifth stanzas Shelley is concerned with his own emotional and quasi-philosophical reactions to the scene. Message: the regenerating function of poetry and the role of the poet as a prophet of social change. Wind: metaphorical expression of the elemental forces necessary to change and regenerate society.