A Wave, a Leaf, a Cloud



  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, O 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 seem'd 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 chain'd and bow'd
  One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind, 1820







images © 1997 by Randy Wang
up | home | me | donate | email