"Ode to the West Wind" (Shelley)

.....Since I have been called upon to say a few words at the North Shore HS reunion of the classes 1962-1970, I was their teacher & I recall lines from some of the greatest poetry of the Romantic Period in England.  I have already extolled the virtues of Tennyson's "Ulysses" which I taught to many at this reunion.  Now, I would like to have you consider some of the most passionate and emotional lines ever written by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) and I quote (with some editing) from "Ode to the West Wind".  Keep in mind that in a long life...and Shelley only lived until he was 30...most everyone cannot fully escape from illness, debilitation, or depression.  And that includes the Baron who has lived 58 years longer than Shelley.  I have had my share of most everything life has to offer, and I am most grateful for it.  It's the last line of this poem that offers redemption...and hope.

                                          
                                     O wild West Wind, thou breath
                                           of Autumn's being, make me

                                           Thy lyre even as the forest is...

O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed	50
Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd	55
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud. 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,   65   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?