Ode to the West Wind

Percy Bysshe Shelley composed this powerful poem in October 1819 while walking through the Cascine wood near Florence, Italy. He poured his grief over the death of his young son William and his outrage at the Peterloo Massacre into these lines. The resulting work appears as part of the 1820 collection Prometheus Unbound published by Charles Ollier in London. This single volume contains the drama and several other poems that explore political upheaval and the power of the human spirit.[edit]