“Be thou me, impetuous one…
among mankind”
The is a part of P.B.Shelley’s impulsive address to the west wind in his lyric Ode to the West Wind. He seeks here earnestly the wind’s inspiration to invigorate the existing stale state of the human world.
What the poet wishes to have in him is the spirit and the force of the wind for the regeneration of oppressed humanity. The wind drives away dry, dead leaves all over this earth in order to make possible the blooming of a new world of spring, full of life and light. The poet implores the wind to inspirit and animate him so that he may propagate his high messages, now lying inactive and paralytic under the pressure of a strangulating situation. He is definite that, animated and inspirited by the wind, he will be able to rouse the world from its deep slumber. His dead thought will be made active and effective through his enchanting verse. Ashes and sparks coming out of the hearth, not yet fully extinguished, sparkles and lits up a dark chamber. The poet’s messages, in the same way, will enliven and activate the still unawakened mankind for a better future to dawn.
The passage expresses here Shelley’s intense desire to associate himself with some elemental force of nature which is here the wild west wind. Shelley’s keenness to perceive the oneness between man and nature is also distinctly clear here. The intimate subjectivity which is a specific feature in Shelleyan lyrics comes out remarkably in this passage. Shelley’s impulsiveness is well marked in his desire to become the dry leaf, the loose cloud, or the rolling wave.
Also read; Bring out Shelley’s imagery of Nature in “Ode to the West wind”
Also read; Discuss How far “Ode to West Wind” is a characteristic Shelleyan poem