Kindred Spirits: PB Shelley's (and my own) Fear of Mortality

I found Percy Bysshe Shelley's “Ode to the West Wind” to be remarkably beautiful and haunted when I first read it, but I didn't truly and fully find meaning in it until we learned a little bit more about the author and his character (or at least, what we know of it). Shelley was apparently an extremely vain man, purely controlled by his ego and impulses, and not really thinking about consequences to his actions. Learning this information brought to life a huge theme in this poem- a theme in all of our lives, and a hard fact that we all grapple with in different ways- the fear of death and anxiety about our human condition, which is best illustrated at the beginning of the fourth stanza:

“If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O uncontrollable!”

Changing the subject from third to first person is a huge indicator of this point. Assuming that “I” is Shelley speaking (which I am), he hypothetically refers to himself as a dead leaf, swift cloud and a wave, which are all three things that do not possess the life that we humans posses, or any life for that matter (as far as we know)! It is a hopeless cry, an expression of Shelley's longing to be “free” from the human body that encases his consciousness, and to be carried by something strong and sure and perhaps not as temporary.

This ode struck a chord with me because I have just been through a period of having these feelings of longing and despair, but the most beautiful part about it all is that we all share this bizarre struggle. We all will have these feelings at one point or another, and it's marvelous to know that all sorts of people have gone through these very same feelings during very different parts of history. It's wonderful to know that these people who had these fears, who are dead and gone can still share their interpretations hundreds of years later. It is a truly beautiful and comforting thing that I'm just learning about and just beginning to appreciate.