Ocean

End of Section II Sonnet Lift Not the Painted Veil Recording by Leonard Wilson of Springfield, Ohio Section III of Shelley Selected Poems and Prose This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Leonard Wilson Section III Ode to the West Wind 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, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm.

Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear! Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear! 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! If even I were as in my boyhood, and Could be the comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed A heavy weight of hours hath chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

But if Freedom should awake In her omnipotence, and shake From the Celtic anarch's hold All the keys of dungeons cold Where a hundred cities lie Chained like thee ingloriously, Thou and all thy sister band Might adorn this sunny land, Twining memories of old time With new virtues more sublime.

If not, perish thou and they! Clouds which stain Truth's rising day By her sun consumed away, Earth can spare ye while like flowers In the waste of years and hours From your dust new nations spring With more kindly blossoming.

Perish! let there only be Floating o'er thy heartless sea, As the garment of thy sky Clothes the world immortally, One remembrance, more sublime Than the tatter'd pall of Time Which scarce hides thy visage wan, That a tempest-cleaving swan Of the sons of Albion, Driven from his ancestral streams By the might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee and Ocean Welcomed him with such emotion That its joy grew his, and sprung From his lips like music flung O'er a mighty thunder-fit, Chastening terror.

What though yet Poesy's unfailing river, Which through Albion winds for ever, Lashing with melodious wave Many a sacred poet's grave, Mourn its latest nursling fled? What though thou with all thy dead Scarce can for this fame repay Aught thine own? Oh rather say, Though thy sins and slavery's foul Overcloud a sunlike soul.

Ode to the West Wind.

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, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill, Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air, With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm.

Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear! Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou for whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear! 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! If even I were as in my boyhood, and Could be the comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

Section twelve.

Love's Philosophy.

The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the Ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In another's being mingle: Why not I with thine? See! the mountains kiss high heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower could be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What are all these kissings worth If thou kiss not me? End of Section 12, Love's Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Recording by Leonard Wilson of Springfield, Ohio.

Therefore, my muse, draw up thy flowing sail, and acclimate a gentle hail with all thy art and metaphors, which must prevail.

Jam prima Oceani pars est praeterita nostri: imparibus restat danda secunda modis.

Quam si praestiterit mentem daemon malus addam, cum sapiens totus prodierit Rabelais.

Malevolus.

[intro music] Welcome to World Ocean Radio.

I'm Peter Neill, founder of the World Ocean Observatory.

When I am asked what is the principal mission of World Ocean Radio, I respond that I am trying to change the way we see the world.

How many strategies can I use to portray the ocean in its myriad forms and constant connection that we use to sustain ourselves in the natural world of which the ocean freshwater continuum is the essential defining part? If indeed the sea connects all things, then I should have a vast number of opportunities to exemplify that connection, and the repetition of that fact using all methods and platforms for worldwide communication becomes the purpose of what I do every day from week to week with words, numbers, visualizations, educational exercises, and multiple means for global public engagement and action.

Here's yet another way to understand this fundamental compulsion.

We ignore it.

We dismiss it at our peril as a terrible loss, and we had best understand now that there is no future without it.

We will discuss these issues and more in future editions of World Ocean Radio.