An analysis of the Ode to the West Wind Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" seems more complex at first glance than it is actually because the poem is structured somewhat like a long, complex sentence in which the main clause appears only in the last of five sections of fourteen lines. The main idea of ​​the poem is suspended for 56 lines before the reader sees exactly what Shelley says to the West Wind and why he says it. In the first four sections, Shelley approaches the West Wind in three different ways, each evoking the power and beauty of the wind. And each section ends with Shelley asking the West Wind "listen, oh listen!" The reader's curiosity is therefore both aroused and suspended, because we know that the west wind is supposed to "hear" something, but we are not told what the wind is supposed to hear or is supposed to do. The first stanza develops the idea of ​​the effect of the west wind on the autumn leaves. The associations we automatically make with autumn - the end of the year, the passing of the life of the year, the beginning of winter - are important, but just as important are other vital aspects of the power of the wind. Shelley tells us that the wind blows not only "the multitudes of yellow, black, pale, and red autumn leaves, stricken with plague" (4, 5), but also "the chariots which move towards their dark and wintry bed ". winged seeds" (6, 7) which will remain dormant all winter until the spring breezes&emdash; "Your azure sister of spring" (9) - blows over the landscapes to awaken life. The west wind chases away dead leaves, but also scatters the seeds that will later give new life to the world This invigorating aspect of the west wind seems significant, but the reader does not yet understand why Shel... middle of paper ... ...he worries his readers. But readers are hard to reach, unresponsive It may seem to a poet struggling to attract an audience, like Shelley, that winter is coming. It took a lot of faith to believe that spring. The west wind is a reviving force, something that can (metaphorically, if not literally) push one's poetry toward new birth, whatever spring is to come: “If winter comes, can spring. be far behind? (70) This is the poet's plea for a rebirth of energy. We don't know for sure whether the poet's energy was sapped by the struggle to make his voice heard, but we do know that for much of his career Shelley struggled with the depressing feeling that no one was reading him. Regardless, this powerful natural force becomes for Shelley the symbol of a power capable of driving away the death of the year, its deep depression, and planting the seeds of rebirth..