thou breath of Autumn's being

Percy Bysshe Shelley notes of the ?tempestuous? wind which inspired her to write an Ode to the West Wind, that its ?temperature was at once mild and animating.? This is an intriguing description of such a ?wild? wind. There emerges a sense of doubleness similar to that which William Blake is consistently evoking. As Professor Phillipson stated in class, Blake often writes of the ?dual sense of creation and destruction that is inherent in artistic inspiration.? P.B. Shelley writes in lines 13-14, also the end of the first part, ?Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere,/Destroyer and preserver, hear, oh hear!? This peculiar balance is hung even about the simple first description of the wind: as the breath of autumn. This ode is to ?thou breath of autumn?s being.? The idea of breath seems to be one full of life, and yet this breath blows all of nature towards the barrenness of winter. The initial sense seems akin to that of the grim reaper. ?thou/Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed/The winged seeds, where thy lie cold and low.? However, the line continues to describe how the seeds lie in such a state until ?thine azure sister of the spring? comes to revive them. For Shelley, it sounds not only coming bleakness, but also coming vitality.