West wind

Virginia creeper overtaking a medlar tree. Appropriate, because after a howling westerly wind all night the clouds began to part and I thought of Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, which in part celebrates the influence of the American Revolution on Europe. Today, thinking of Teleri, I take her copy of Shelley's poems, the margins of which are full of her pencilled annotations.

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 colours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

May it blow! Bring it on!