From THE PRELUDE

BOOK FIRST

INTRODUCTION-

-CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME

OH there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come
To none more grateful than to me; escaped
 
From the vast city, where I long had pined
A discontented sojourner: now free,
Free as a bird to settle where I will.
What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale                
Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove
Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream
Shall with its murmur lull me into rest?
The earth is all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,         
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!  
Trances of thought and mountings of the mind
Come fast upon me: it is shaken off,                        
That burthen of my own unnatural self,
The heavy weight of many a weary day
Not mine, and such as were not made for me.
Long months of peace (if such bold word accord
With any promises of human life),
Long months of ease and undisturbed delight
Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn,
By road or pathway, or through trackless field,
Up hill or down, or shall some floating thing
Upon the river point me out my course? 
 
(…)
                     
http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww287.html, visited May 13, 2006
 
 
William Wordsworth
 
 
 

 

 
   Percy Bysshe Shelley

    ODE TO THE WEST WIND      
 

I

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 winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
 (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver;

hear, O hear!
 

(…)

 

http://www.bartleby.com/101/610.html, visited May 13, 2006

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

I’m going to analyze both poems following the perspective of the air as a messenger of nature.

 

William Wordsworth expresses through The Prelude a journey into himself, I have read the Book First because it is the beginning of that journey. The first reading of the poem tells me that he is talking about nature and the way it influences us.

 

Instead of this, Percy B. Shelley writes a poem in which he is talking about the influence of wind on nature, and maybe on human lifes, an Ode to the West Wind.

 

The Prelude is a poem about the poet himself and as I have mentioned before, is like a spiritual journey into him self helped by nature. The first lines set the scene in which the poem is developed. The author is running away from urban life and little by little goes into the middle of nature to find himself, to find freedom.

 

We can see in the first lines of the Ode to the West Wind that it is a dedication to the savage wind of autumn. He is an unseen presence which drives the leaves like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

 

Now I have found a similitude between both poems. Both authors make a personification of the “air”, an allegory, but there is also a difference because for Wordsworth, the “air” is a gentle breeze and for Shelley, it is the wind of autumn, a Wild Spirit.

 

In The Prelude, this breeze is the messenger of nature who “touches” him, who influences him through his cheek, the part of himself that is in touch with nature. In Ode to the West Wind, the wind is also the messenger, but in this case it is the messenger of autumn, the season where nature begins to die. The wind is who is preparing the leaves, the seeds, etc. keeping them “sleeping” until the arrival of spring.

 

Shelley describes the wind as Destroyer and Preserver, because it is destroying nature, and at the same time it is keeping the leaves, the seeds, and nature in general like a corpse within its grave.

 

But Wordsworth is talking about himself as a prisoner, a captive who is immured at the city and needs nature to feel the freedom again. In this case the breeze is who is saying that he comes into nature, where people can find a home, where people can be free and save out of the prison of the city”.

 

Another difference that I have found is the receiver of the poems. Both include the words thee and thou (you), which implies another person or maybe not. In Ode to the West Wind, we can perceive from the beginning that he is dedicating the poem to the West Wind and that “thou” is the wind and the author is not implying anyone in the poem.

 

And in The Prelude, Wordsworth is talking about himself but when he is talking to “thee”, he is talking to the reader because he is also saying how nature influences us and how we react in that contact with nature.

 

Both authors talk about the “air” as a symbol of a messenger of nature, both poems share this topic, but both authors have different ways to express the mission of “air”. While Wordsworth is more positive, Shelley watches the air as a destructor of nature.

 

I think The Prelude is a song of hope, the author is telling us that we can go out of our prison and find a shelter in nature. And Ode to the West Wind is more melancholic than The Prelude but in my opinion, there is also an idea of hope when he is talking about spring. He is saying that now it is autumn and nature is beginning to die, you can be some depressed sometimes in your life, but spring always comes, those problems always disappear.

 

 

 

 

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