Double Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to West Wing or "Ode to the West Wind." Come on, people. The real text of "Ode to the West Wind" can be found at: http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/shelley7.html
Author's Note: In my English Literature class this past year, I kept writing "West Wing" instead of "West Wind" in the title of Shelley's masterpiece "Ode to the West Wind." My best friend convinced me to write a version of the poem concerning the West Wing instead. Here it is.
Ode to the West Wing
By BJ Garrett
I
O wild West Wing, breath of America's being,
Thou from whose oft seen presence the laws new
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic-red,
Prejudice-stricken multitudes: O Thou,
Who chariotest them to their bright true justice.
The wingèd children, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the State shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming masses, and fill
(Driving sweet kids like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill;
West Wing, which art present everywhere;
Defender and Prosecutor; hear, oh, hear!
II
Thou on whose dream, midst the losers' commotion,
Loose men like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled halls of Senate and Congress,
Angels of truth and equity: there are spread
On this red-white-and-blue flag, hear,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Assistant, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying era, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast Capital Building,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of good words, from whose solid atmosphere
Truth, and justice, and good will burst: O hear!
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The true-blue man, where he lay in New Hampshire,
Lulled by the call of his beloved daughters,
Beside an old house in Manchester,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the future's sooner day,
All overgrown with crusty fools and liars
So cruel, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The wretched and the soldiers which wear
The sapless dictators of the world, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves, O hear!
IV
If I were a poor child thou mightest bear;
If I were a staffer to fly with thee;
A man to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as a politician, and could be
The comrade of they wanderings oe'r the Earth,
As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed
Scarce seemed Airforce One; ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Of lift me as a child, a staffer, a man!
I fall upon the thorns of hiatus! I bleed!
A heavy weight of months has chained and bowed
One who likes thee--tameless, and swift, and proud.
V
Make me thy fan, even as the critics are:
What if my heart is throbbing like their own!
The tumult of they mighty words and scenes
Will take from both a deep, abiding tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Wing fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead heart to new reaches and heights
Like starving eyes to quicken a new season!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Gather, as from an unextinguished hearth,
Flames and sparks, my fellows among humanity!
Be through your hours to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of thy sweet theme! O, Wing,
If Summer comes, can Fall be far behind?
Author's Note: In my English Literature class this past year, I kept writing "West Wing" instead of "West Wind" in the title of Shelley's masterpiece "Ode to the West Wind." My best friend convinced me to write a version of the poem concerning the West Wing instead. Here it is.
Ode to the West Wing
By BJ Garrett
I
O wild West Wing, breath of America's being,
Thou from whose oft seen presence the laws new
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic-red,
Prejudice-stricken multitudes: O Thou,
Who chariotest them to their bright true justice.
The wingèd children, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the State shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming masses, and fill
(Driving sweet kids like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill;
West Wing, which art present everywhere;
Defender and Prosecutor; hear, oh, hear!
II
Thou on whose dream, midst the losers' commotion,
Loose men like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled halls of Senate and Congress,
Angels of truth and equity: there are spread
On this red-white-and-blue flag, hear,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Assistant, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying era, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast Capital Building,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of good words, from whose solid atmosphere
Truth, and justice, and good will burst: O hear!
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The true-blue man, where he lay in New Hampshire,
Lulled by the call of his beloved daughters,
Beside an old house in Manchester,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the future's sooner day,
All overgrown with crusty fools and liars
So cruel, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The wretched and the soldiers which wear
The sapless dictators of the world, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves, O hear!
IV
If I were a poor child thou mightest bear;
If I were a staffer to fly with thee;
A man to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as a politician, and could be
The comrade of they wanderings oe'r the Earth,
As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed
Scarce seemed Airforce One; ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Of lift me as a child, a staffer, a man!
I fall upon the thorns of hiatus! I bleed!
A heavy weight of months has chained and bowed
One who likes thee--tameless, and swift, and proud.
V
Make me thy fan, even as the critics are:
What if my heart is throbbing like their own!
The tumult of they mighty words and scenes
Will take from both a deep, abiding tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Wing fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead heart to new reaches and heights
Like starving eyes to quicken a new season!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Gather, as from an unextinguished hearth,
Flames and sparks, my fellows among humanity!
Be through your hours to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of thy sweet theme! O, Wing,
If Summer comes, can Fall be far behind?