Autumn Lyre



  Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
  What if my leaves are falling like its own!
  The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

    Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
  Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
  My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

  Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
  Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
  And, by the incantation of this verse,

  Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
  Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
  Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

  The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
  If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

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







images © 1997 by Randy Wang
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