Chapter 24 Ode to the West Wind---Translated by Cha Liangzheng
Ode to the West Wind
1
O violent west wind, breath of autumn's life!
You are invisible, but dead leaves are swept away by you,
Like ghosts and ghosts who encountered a wizard, they fled away one after another:
Yellow, black, gray, red as consumptive,
Oh, the plague-stricken group: O West Wind, it is you
Drive the winged seed to
Dark winter beds, where they lie,
Like a deathbed in a tomb, cold, deep, low,
Till spring, your blue-sky sister blows
Her trumpet, resounding over the sleeping earth,
(Call out the shoots, like sheep, feed on the air)
Fill the mountains and plains with color and fragrance.
Unruly spirit, you travel everywhere;
Destroyer and Protector: Listen, you listen!
2
Submerged in your torrents, when the sky is confused,
Flowing clouds are torn like dead leaves from the earth
Freed from the tangled branches of sky and sea.
Be the messenger of rain and electricity: they fall
On the blue surface of your majestic air,
Glittering like madwomen's flying hair,
From the most distant and vague edge of the sky
Straight to the mid-heaven of the sky, everywhere is swaying
The curly hair of the coming thunderstorm, to the dying year
You sang the funeral song, and the dense night
Will be a dome for its vast mausoleum,
Inside is the condensation of your mighty power;
That's your aura, from which will spring
Black rain, hail and fire: oh hear!
3
It is you who awaken the blue Mediterranean,
And it was asleep all summer long,
Hypnotized by the swirls of clear waters,
Just off a pumice island in Baya Bay,
It dreams of ancient palaces and pavilions
Trembling in the shadows of water and sky,
And all covered with moss and flowers,
The fragrance is so charming and intoxicating!Oh, for you
Give way to the rough waves of the Atlantic
Cleave yourself to two sides, and deep in the abyss
The flowers and plants in the ocean and the muddy forest
Although the branches and leaves are sparse, they have no energy;
They were green with fright at your voice:
Shrinking automatically while trembling: Oh, listen!
4
Hey, if I were a dead leaf lifted up by you,
If I were a cloud that could fly with you,
is a wave, panting with thy power,
If I share your pulse, it's just as good as
You are so free, O unbridled life!
If I could dance against the wind like when I was a teenager
Became your companion, roaming the sky
(Because ah, at that time, if you want to chase you to the sky,
Doesn't seem like a dream), I wouldn't be as I am now
So anxious to compete with you to pray.
O lift me up as waves, leaves, and clouds!
I stumble upon the thorns of life, and I bleed!
This life subdued by the yoke of years
It was just like you: proud, swift and unruly.
5
Make me your harp, like a forest:
Although my leaves are falling, what does it matter!
the music of your great ensemble
Will be stained with deep autumn of the woods and me:
Although sad and sweet.Oh, I wish you would give me
Raging spirit!Brave man, let us be one!
Please blow my dead thoughts to the world,
Let it foster new life like a dead leaf!
Oh, listen to this spelllike hymn,
Take my words like ashes and sparks
Spread from the fire that has not been extinguished to the world!
Let the trumpets of prophecy pass through my lips
Wake up the sleepy earth!if winter
It has come, west wind, how can spring be so far away?
1819
Translated by Cha Liangzheng