A nest of singing birds; Ode to the West Wind; 23

Ier. A. A nest of singing birds three centuries of English verse her doctorate from just. This is a poem of enormous energy. The Ode to the West Wind by Shelley all the way. If winter comes carom Spring be far behind. Those words come of course at the end of the poem. They sum it up. They're written by a man who expects the world to come crashing down. Who will his

destruction. Because there is no alternative. If all that he values is to have a light in there to survive and grow. Surely detested violence and destruction in themselves but he wills them to put an end to what is to him a cover up to radical pseudo civilization afterwards. A new world after winter. Spring must come. He's writing in 1890. Let us remind ourselves of the inspirations and disillusioning offered to him by the last 40 years in 1789 the French Revolution. Bliss was it then to be alive but to be young was very heaven. So said Wordsworth. But liberation became the new tyranny of Napoleon. The nations rose against Napoleonic France promises were made but after the victory of Waterloo in 1815 Metternich the Austrian Minister and like minds in other countries clamped down

one more tyranny. Four years after Waterloo Cherie is involved in the conspiracies of the Italian liberal Patriots the carbon Ari he longs for tyranny to be destroyed once and for the intensity of his longing and lashes. The third stanza of this code. Who do just waken from his summer dreams the blue Mediterranean where he lolled by the coil of his crystalline streams beside a Palm is silent and that is the West Wind. Shani imagines it's appalling energy unleashed on the come in and see an energy which is disturbed. The vast Atlantic to its depths. What can it do to this smooth blue surface. What can revolution do to become artificial enervating surface shining away of the old regime. Who did it waken from his summer dreams. The blue Mediterranean where he lay

lolled by the coil of his crystalline streams beside the palm is silent by his back and saw really old palaces and towers quivering within the waves intenser all overgrown with as your mass and flowers sweet scents faints picturing them. For whose part the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms while far below the sea blooms in the woods which where the sapless foliage of the ocean the high voice and suddenly grow gray with fear and trying to spoil themselves. Or here. And what is the worst when to show me first what is it literally in nature or wild west wind the breath of all terms being from whose unseen presence

the leaves dead are driven like ghosts remain in Tranter fleeing yellow and black and pale and hectic red pestilence stricken multitudes hoser who chatter your tears to their dark winter the when you see where they lie cold and love each like a corpse within its grave until I am as your sister of the spring shall blow her clarion or the dreaming. And Phil driving sweet buds like flocks to feed him with living hues and odors play and his wild spirit which are moving every way her destroyer and Preserver here or here. It is destroyer and preserver. It destroys what is corrupt and moribund it preserves the seeds which will germinate in spring without the wind. Life would end.

Shani mentions to west winds. First the breath of autumn's being and seconded as your sister of the spring the warm west wind of spring which brings moisture warmth and life. But his concern mainly with the West Wind of autumn it brings winter. Winter must come before spring. Liberal Europe must destroy to rebuild wild spirit which are moving every way here destroy and preserve here or here in the second stanza. He looks out to sea at the storm surging in from the horizon where the eye cannot separate see from Sky. The one who stream made the steep skies commotion loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves a shared shock from the tangled boughs of heaven and the ocean angels of rain and lightning. There are spread on the blue surface of our own areas. Like the bright hair

uplifted from the head of some fears Mina had even from the dim verge of the horizon to the Senate's height the lark's of the approaching storm. The urge of the dying year to which this closing night will be the dome of a vast sample code vaulted with all right congregated mind to vapors from whose solid atmosphere black rain and fire and hail will burst. Oh here the angels are the messengers announcing rain and lightning. This enormous energy has shattered the artificial reflected world in the blue Mediterranean. But Shirley feels as dead and as sterile as that world. He wants the energy of the wind to move him. If you can no longer be inspired to write for mankind he wanted to borrow energy from the wind. In stanza 1 It drives the leaves in stanza 2. It drives the clouds

stanza 3 gives us the Atlantic driven by this wind all surely Stern me with them like dead leaves which fall under the thorns. He lies sore and in tangled but he is not like the leaves. He is like the wind tameness and swift and proud. He begs of the wind. The spirit of energy the vital spirit of freedom to speak through him to make him sing like the forest. Now before winter has come before Earth awakens use me to start the destruction. Use me to loose the violence and the new world can one day be built. All wild west wind the breath of autumn's being from whose unseen presence the leaves dead are driven like ghosts remain in Tranter fleeing yellow and black and pale and hectic red pestilence stricken mounted to you its holes are charities to their

dark winter the when you see where they lie cold and love each like a corpse within its grave until I am as your sister of the spring shall blow her clarion or the dreaming. And for driving sweet buds like flocks to feed him with living hues and odors play and his wild spirit which are moving every way her destroyer and Preserver here or here. Round one whose stream made the steep skies commotion loose clouds like a stick eying leaves and shared shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean angels of rain and lightning. They are spread on the blue surface of an Aries. Like the bright hair uplifted from the head of something as Mina had even from the dim verge of the horizon to the Senate's height the locks of the approaching

storm with our dirge of the dying year to which this closing night will be the dome of a vast sample code vaulted with like congregated mind to vapors from whose solid atmosphere black rain and fire and hail will burst. Oh here. Who did waken from his summer dreams the blue Mediterranean where he led a lot of old by the coil of his crystalline streams beside a pommy silent by his back and saw in silly old palaces and towers quivering within the waves intensity. All overgrown with as your mouse and flowers sweet the scents feigns picturing them. The folk whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms while far below the sea blooms in the woods which where the sapless foliage of the ocean and

the high voice and suddenly grown gray with fear and trembling and despoil themselves whole here. If I were to Deadly my despair if I want a swift cloud to fly with he waved a hand beneath my power and share the impulse of my strength only less free than the uncontrollable. If even I was in my boyhood and could be the comrade of my wanderings over heaven I was there and went to outstrip like Sky you speed scarce seemed a vision I wouldn't have striven as thus with thee in prayer in soul and lead. Oh lift me as a way to leave a cloud would I fall upon the thorns of life I lead. The heavy weight of his chains and bowed while I too

like the tame lace and swift and proud. Make me that I live even as the Far East is ready for my leaves are falling like its own. The tumult of the mighty harmonies will take from both the D autumnal tones sweet though in sadness be thy spirit fierce my spirit be thy me impetuous one. Drive my thoughts over the universe like withered leaves to quicken a new birth. And by the incantation of this scatter I was from and extinguished hearth ashes and sparks my words among mankind. Be through my lips are now awakened earth the trumpet of a prophet say. Or when if winter comes Can Spring be far behind what Shelley has to

say in this ode is bound up inseparably with the ancient awareness of human beings that in nature there is perpetual growth death and rebirth. The images of the first stanza contrasts the dying of autumn with the rebirth of spring. She was an atheist who did not believe in immortality in the day of judgment and spiritual rebirth in a life of freedom from the sins humanity of the flesh. In heaven. But it was a product of a Christian civilization and its imagery influences him. There will need seeds like each like a corpse in its grave until dying as your sister of the spring shall blow Clarion or the dreaming of this spring's Clarion which awakens the dreaming is Shelley's equivalent of the last trumpet of Christianity the trumpet which sounds on the day of judgment and awakens the dead from their sleep to a new life. The image of the Last Judgment permeates the English verse about three centuries

Shakespeare puts it in the bents mind in that line which looks forward through day after day of the future to the last syllable of recorded time. That moment when the recording angel would have written the last syllable of history and time shall have a stop. The same vision is in prosperous mind when he tells Ferdinand in The Tempest not to be dismayed by the sudden disappearance of the seemingly solid mass because all men and women the great globe itself will one day vanish when time gives place to eternity. Some two centuries before Shelley wrote another poet but a Christian one was imagining the last judgment when he open one of his sonnets with at the round imagined corner. Blow your trumpets angels and the rounds arise from death. You know this when it is of souls and to your scattered bodies go what other link is there between John Donne the

tormented Christian and Percy Shelley the tormented atheist. Each wrote a poem full of energy and wish each was feeling frustrated tired of failure incapable of doing what seemed to him of greatest importance in life. We've heard Sherry's poem here done. Only we shall not hear the sonnet from which those lines come. But another in which he begged God to possess him as utterly as surely wanted to be subdued to the energy of the wind batter my heart three persons. God for you as yet but not brave to shine and seek to mend that I may rise and stand or throw me and bend your first or break blow burn and make me new. I like and use Howard to another do you labor to admit you know and reason your viceroy in me me should

defend. But he is captive and proves weak core untrue yet dearly I love you and would beloved fade but ember TROs done to your enemy. Divorce me untie or break that knot again. Take me to you imprison me for I accept you and throw me. Never shall be free nor ever chaste except you ravish me. Here is another poet striving begging imploring to be taken and mastered used by something greater than himself. Show me who has no god adores liberty as a spirit as an energy of the human soul. His West Wind is for him a vast source of energy which must possess him as completely is done which is to be overwhelmed by his God.

For I accept you in thrall need never shall be free nor ever chaste except you ravish me. First Surely freedom is not a matter of being inthe rolled by a God but by a living idea. Nevertheless he strives with His breath of autumn's being in words of prayer which echo the Old Testament when men do not only wrestle in prayer but Jacob wrestles literally all night with the angel who visits his tent and leaves him lame. What about. He does not want just to wrestle with his god whose adversity has become despite himself or perhaps has done fears because of himself or what he is essentially. Which is why he must be remade batter my heart three person God for us yet but not breathe to shine and seek to mend. That I may rise and stand or throw me and bend your thirst or

break blow burn and make me new. At first he speaks of himself as some kind of metal utensil in the hands of a tinker or some such Smith and then the third line has a logical digression. But the poets want and emotion unchanged. Dunn wants to be crushed and remade. In this case we have the paradox of that I may rise and stand or through me and then the image of metalworking reasserts itself that I may rise and stand or throw me and bend your force to break blow burn and make me new. Ben means direct to direct your force to break it. This line answers the second for you as yet but not breed. Why seek to man. Dunn does not want his god to knock but to break him not to breathe but to

blow. Not to shine but to burn. Don't seek to mend he pleads but make me knew the second quatrain of this sonnet has another image through which to express the same need the same emotion. I like a news tower to another do you labor to admit you know and reason your viceroy in me me should defend. But he is captive and proves we are untrue in the first quatrain Don expresses his awareness of himself as requiring new making a conversion from sin into a saved. But now he's more aware of himself as a helpless betraying of God the image of the zip town is apt. He feels himself guilty of surrender to Satan despite his longing to be a holy God. Reason is God's viceroy in this town which is changed hands if not sides. This is not reason as it has been conceived in and since the eighteenth century as Sherry

thought of it. Reason for Dunn is still the immortal part of man. The link with the angels and with God when reason is healthy and in control. No man can be separated from God but in done to use it on God's Viceroy has surrendered to the enemy in weakness or in Treasury. The imagery of this derives from an idea latent in the opening words batter my heart three persons to God the notion of the Trinity the three person God battering Dunn's heart suggests another of an engine of siege warfare. Perhaps a three headed battering ram. Batter My Heart three person God for us yet but not brave. Shine and seek to mend. That I may rise and stand or throw me and bend your force to break blow burn and make me new. Like a news tower to another labor to admit you

know and reason your viceroy in me should defend. But he is captive and proves we go on. True the unity of these first eight lines the octave is an expression of done Central need to be treated as violently as if he were an enemy before he can be reconciled to his three person God and this inner unity shows itself outwardly in a rhyme scheme which rings the changes on no more than two rhymes. You mentioned being new do you and defend true at the end of the octave at the alter comes the turn of the thought which shows itself in a new rhyme. Yes Dear Lou I love you and would beloved say treat me as irreparable done bags as an enemy. Crush me and make me new. Subdue me and enforce peace. Look I'm divorced from you yet dearly I love you and want to be loved by you.

This is a love poem with a difference. Dunn is not concerned with the love of sanity is for a lady real or the idealized representative of the virtues or a symbol of purity of so he wants to love and be loved by his God. He has gone far past Sidney's please leave me all love which reaches to but to dust and down my mind. Aspire to higher things. Grow Rich in that which never taketh rest. Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings. Draw in thy beams and humble all of I might to that sweet yoke Well lasting freedom's be which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light. That dust both shine and give us sight to see. Oh take fast hold. Let that light be thy

guide in this small course which birth draws out to death. And think how evil become of him to slide. Who seek of heaven and comes of heavenly breath. Then farewell world thy uttermost. I see eternal life maintained by life in me. Sidney speaks with calm and confidence. Dun agonizes just this side of despair not despair for a lady but for his own salvation. That is why we have the appropriate images of violence. Divorce me untie or break that knot again. Take me to you imprison me. Dunn now breaks the strict rules of sonnet writing. So far his rhymes in the sestet have been feigned and to me again now he repeats the E sound three times. But what he

loses in not conforming with his rhymes. He gains in intensity the 12 lines in a word now pronounced I. But then he in this reading may have decided it would be too precious to say for never shall be free. The couplet brings the resolution with the last line of the third quatrain running on into this for I accept you in thrall need never shall be free nor ever chaste except you ravish me again wonders a word with Paradox to be free you must be enthralled to be chaste You must be ravished chaste as used in the sense of undefiled to be undefiled he must be raped by God. This poet has given us His own version of themes and images which we meet in traditional love sonnets French's seventh sonnet to list here says death in a rage assaulted once my heart with the love of her.

He talks of his defeat by Cupid. My heart lay guarded so conquered Now he like a captive lies large wails in Sonnet 25 to Phyllis. I wage the combat with two mighty foes and constables fifth sonnet to Diana says my reason absent did mine I was required to watch and ward and such foes descry as they should in my heart approaching spy but traitor eyes my heart to death to inspire corrupted with hopes. It's Letty in design. Another sonnet to Diana begins to live in Hell and Heaven to behold. This is metaphorical but done is much nearer suffering the agony literally. One more example Creighton's 40 of Sonnet 2 idea. My heart the anvil. When my thoughts do beat my words the hammers fashioning my desires my breasts the forge including all the

heat. Love is the fuel which maintains the fire. My sighs the bellows which the flame increases. How trivial does all this sound up to down. Let's leave this pretty appropriateness for done searing experience batter my heart three person God for you as yet but not breathe to shine and seek to mend that I may rise and stand or throw me and bend your force to break blow burn and make me new. I like a news tower to another do you labor to admit you know and reason your viceroy in me me should defend. But he is captive and proves weak core untrue. Yet dearly I love you and would be love and fame but I'm Botros done to your enemy. Divorce me

untie or break that knot again. Take me to you imprison me for I accept you and throw me. Never shall be free nor ever chaste except you ravish me. It is done right or wrong. He believes that his own sin prevents his repentance. He wants a violent energy to batter him into a new life. Here is the great affinity with Shelly. They are very dissimilar. Of course but like Donne Shelly wants an energy outside him to break blow burn and make him new. They both pray for violence. Make me the highlight even as the funny stories. What if my leaves are falling like it's own. The tumult of the eye mighty harmonies will take from both the Dee or Tom the whole tone sweet though in sadness. Be thy speech for us. My ST be the be impetuous one drives my thoughts

over the universe like withered leaves to quicken a new birth. And by the incantation of this scatter as from an under extinguished hot ashes and stocks my words among mankind be through my lips are now awakened as the trumpet of a prophet say o your way and if winter comes Can Spring be far behind. You have been listening to a program on Shelley's over to the west wind and Donne sonnet 14 of his holy sonnets therof I will read Sidney sonnets and part of one by down the ode was read by diary boys Jonathan for I want to read Donne sonnet. This is from Joseph inviting you to be with us again. This program was produced by Radio Broadcast Services of the University of Washington under a

grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is the national educational radio network.