Page 61 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit

“Ode to the West Wind”
by Percy Bysshe Shelley, pages35-37

Vocabulary
hectic – frenzied
pestilence – plague, disease
azure – blue
pumice – powdery ash used as an abrasive

1. What is the rhyme scheme of each section of the poem?

The first and third lines of each stanza rhyme, while the middle line begins the rhyme of the
following stanza. This rhyme scheme is known as terza rima.

2. What is the wind a metaphor of?

The speaker uses the wind as a metaphor for his own art.

3. In contrast with “Pestilence-stricken,” what positive attribute do the dead leaves have?

Despite their disease-carrying nature, the leaves carry seeds into the ground, where they
wait under the snow to bloom.

4. In the section IV, what is the wish of the speaker? What urges him to make such a wish?

The speaker wishes he could he could be a leaf, a cloud, or an ocean wave so that he may
be lifted up by the West Wind and away from the world in which he lives. In this section, he
tells the reader it is a time of “sore need” for him. He states, “I fall upon the thorns of life!
I bleed!” and “A heavy weight of hours has changed and bowed/ One too like thee.” Both
these statements reveal the misery the speaker currently is experiencing, therefore
motivating him to wish to be lifted up and away from his life on Earth.

T-43