3i8 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



fessed, to his pride, that one stanza of this ode was an almost 

 perfect weather prophecy. The storm fell as he foretold in 

 the manner he foretold. Throughout the poem the analysis 

 of the effects of the wind is not the less sharp and precise 

 because the ode emerges from a depth of feeling rare even 

 in poetry. It opens, we all remember, with autumn : 



' 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 ' ; 



and it ends with spring, when the east wind takes its place. 



' If winter comes can spring be far behind ? ' We feel in 

 England of the west wind, even while it whirls the sere leaves 

 to decay, that the promise of near spring is conveyed in the 

 warmth of the air that it sweeps across the land off the 

 surface of the western Gulf Stream. 



