functions as both a "destroyer and preserver."

Shelley first describes this wild spirit as an "enchanter" that drives multicolored autumn leaves before it. The autumn leaves have died and fallen off the trees, and so the poet likens them to "pestilence-stricken multitudes." A pestilence is a plague or serious illness that kills people, so this image is obviously of the wind as destroyer. In contrast, the poet then says that the wind at the same time also hides the "winged seeds" in their "dark wintry bed" until spring comes and the seeds sprout. This image shows the wind as preserver.

The poet describes how the wind sweeps the clouds along, bringing rain and lightning, and also how the wind creates a pattern in the clouds that looks like the hair "of some fierce Maenad." The Maenads were women who were devotees of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. They would go into mad, ecstatic dances while they were worshipping. The poet suggests that the wild wind sculpts cloud patterns in the sky that suggest this wild abandon.

The poet says that the wild spirit of the wind is also a singer of dirges, which are songs sung at funerals. In this case, the wind sings the death of the old year as it descends into winter.

The late-season wild spirit of the west wind wakens the Mediterranean Sea, which sleeps during the summer, and causes the Atlantic Ocean to create chasms between tossing waves.

Finally, the poet calls upon the west wind, as if it were sentient, to become the wild spirit of inspiration for him. The poet wishes to be like a leaf or cloud or wave so that the wind can touch and move him. He wants to scatter his words among mankind and be as "the trumpet of a prophecy." However, like the wild spirit of the wind, the poet longs to be not destroyer only but also preserver, as evidenced by the last line when he states that the winter blowing of the west wind means that spring will eventually follow.

Shelley personifies wind throughout this poem in many ways, giving attributes of numerous important characters and figures. What is interesting is that the personification shifts throughout the poem to accurately capture the different aspects of the West Wind, which acts to reflect the shifting nature of wind even more.

Initially, Shelley describes the wind almost as a God, with creative power and encapsulating the aspects of mercy and vitriol, as well as having power over life and death. It shifts later on to take on a more pessimistic typification, reflecting the nature of Death in the wind and how it acts to judge and destroy.

Finally, in the last stanza, it shifts once more, describing the wind almost as a nymph or poet, carrying a tune and making melodies. This is a playful and wise characterization of the wind, putting it in a more beneficial light than it had been previously.

Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" uses symbolism throughout to convey its primary theme of the sublime power of nature. You are correct in stating that the West Wind is used symbolically, but it is not necessarily "a symbol" as such—Shelley is, indeed, literally addressing the wind, but the personified West Wind also represents a host of other elements in the world of weather and nature, which govern the world humans inhabit. Shelley's personified West Wind falls in line with a very common Romantic trope, pathetic fallacy, wherein weather and the natural world are given human attributes, with their behavior reflecting changes in the wider environment.

In the first section of the poem, the Wind symbolizes a dual force of destruction and creation, "Destroyer and preserver." Allusions in this section suggest mythical elements; the Wind "chariotest" the dying plants of autumn to their winter rest, and it is addressed as "Wild Spirit," with both of these elements redolent of classical mythology. Similarly, the West Wind's "azure sister of the Spring" is mentioned, indicating that the West Wind is only one of nature's children.

Quasi-Classical allusions recur throughout the poem to emphasize the godlike power of the West Wind: it "did waken...the blue Mediterranean" and its "voice" causes the oceans to "tremble" with fear. In this section, the Wind symbolizes a force "uncontrollable" enough to make the rest of the natural world fear its whims.

In the final stanza, however, the Wind symbolizes something else, as the speaker calls upon it to "be thou me, impetuous one!" Here, the Spirit symbolizes the artist's muse or inspiration, which will drive away "dead thoughts" like dead leaves in order to help the artist "quicken a new birth" of thought. At this point, then, the poem cycles back to its point of origin, with the West Wind symbolizing the destruction of what has had its day, and the creative force that helps birth the new.

In Shelley's Ode, the west wind, I would argue, is symbolic of a primal force that is both the "destroyer and preserver" it is called, but also a life-giving element that spurs human creativity.

Shelley identifies the west wind with autumn, the season in which verdant life dies off and dark winter approaches. As is typical with Shelley, the changes brought by it are described in apocalyptic terms. The "pestilence-stricken multitudes" are carried before the wind; "black rain, and fire, and hail" will burst from the "dome of a vast sepulchre" in the vaulted sky above. But Shelley sees the wind as a positive force as well:

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay . . .

Shelley's point is that the wild, destructive force of the wind is something necessary and, paradoxically, life-giving, rousing the world (and humanity) from the somnolent peace of summer.

That this "destroyer" is at the foundation of artistic creativity is made clear when the speaker commands it to

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is,

What if my leaves are falling, like its own?

Here we see the concept that the negative forces in life and in nature are somehow the source of man's ability to express himself and to achieve greatness. The idea is linked to the Romantic poet's prophecy of his own early death. Shelley, like his contemporaries Byron and Keats, died young. The Ode is not merely a prediction of his own death and the "death" of Nature of which the autumn west wind is a harbinger. It also expresses a faith that humanity, like the natural world, will renew itself. The wind symbolizes this rebirth in the famous closing line,

O wind!

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?