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242 The Romantic period 1789–1832
There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
No flower upon the ground,
And little motion in the air
Except the mill wheel’s sound.
(A widow bird)
Here the images from nature are employed to express inner feelings and
states of mind. A sense of loss and emotional numbness is conveyed through
the cold, the emptiness of the scene and the overall lack of movement.
Shelley has often been criticised for putting his own feelings too directly at
the centre of his poems and for being too self-indulgent and self-pitying.
There are certainly lines in some poems where this is the case. For example:
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
(Ode to the West Wind)
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear.
(Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples)
A widow bird and numerous other lyrics (for example, To a Skylark,
The Cloud, With a Guitar to Jane, The Indian Serenade) do not, however,
fall into that category. In one of his best-known lyrics, Ode to the West
Wind, Shelley makes the wildness of the wind a controlled symbol of his
deepest personal aspirations for human freedom. The wind sweeps away
the old life and spreads the seeds which will produce a new ideal life:
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,