Quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley: “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”
This is a metaphor. The pains and difficulty of life are compared to thorns and the suffering they cause the poet, to bleeding.
Shelly wrote Ode to the West Wind in 1819 when he was in Florence, Italy. He published this poem along with his play Prometheus Unbound in 1820 and he stated in a note that he wrote this poem while sitting in the woods along the Arno River in October. Even if he loved Italy but he was feeling sad about being separating from the political and social affairs back in his native England. Many problems have suggested that Ode to the West Wind relates to that feeling of impotent.
Shelley is trying to wish that if he could retain that childhood freedom, he would never have to pray to the west wind in times of need. The poet asks the wind to be his own Spirit, and to take his thoughts across the world. He asks the wind, by the avatar of this verse, to spread his feelings among mankind, to be the “trumpet of a prophecy.”
Being a religious and literary socialist, Shelley was deeply invested in his own capability to arouse society. Some poets require solitude and privacy and a refuge in the woods to do their work best, but Shelley required reviving arguments and actions. “Ode to the West Wind” is one of the poems in which he considered the role and power of the poet to address new ideas and changes. It’s also, though you may find this hard to believe, one of Shelley’s more informal poems.
This poem is brief and straightforward natural image of present and his theoretical notions regarding philosophy and poetry in a solid way. It feels like, it is Shelley’s summary of his life or at least one aspect of that. Shelley is considered as the most difficult of the Romantic philosophers to fall in love. Luckily, he’s not the most arduous poet. He is difficult to love with, but not too aggressive to understand.
It’s difficult to understand that we should be concerned about a poet who can be so intellectual. Here is the thing about Shelley’s feeling that he is fiercely honest all the time. If he feels like his life is vanishing away and his notions stink then he will tell you. If he examines that his poetic philosophy is not influencing that he hopes for he will accept his failure. And if he senses as being alive is same as being pierced all over with small sharp things and having your lifeblood slowly out all over, he will must tell you that, too.
He connected his feelings to biggest philosophical, intellectual and social affairs and tried to make himself aware of them in a global context. This might be a little egoistic but it is the only way more interesting than being self-absorbed. Shelley balanced his intensity of emotions with attention to the grand sweep of nature and philosophy. He’s the only poet who did it so well.