Shelley as a poet of Nature: Guide notes

Q) 'Shelley as a poet of Nature'- Comment.

Answer:- Nature had always been a favoured niche for almost every romantic poet and love for Nature as one of the prime requisites for the Romantics. Shelley is no exception here. Shelley in his poem Ode to the Westwind has beautifully used the element of nature and has personified them. P.B.Shelley in this poem has portrayed his love for Nature at the tip of his pen through the use of Nature imagery like 'the leaves dead/ Are driven like a ghost from an enchanter fleeing', ' Black rain; and fire, and hail, will burst' , etc. Shelley patronise Mother Nature in his poem as a preserver and a destroyer. Nature through its own elements destroy itself and again clears the ways for a new birth and replacement. Shelley admired the indefinite and changeful attribute of Nature. He puts forward the changing and indefinite mood of Nature,  like for example are the clouds, the wind, lightening, etc. He says that Nature's spirit is eternal and he agrees that there is some kind of intelligence that controls Nature. In fact, he fuses the platonic philosophy of love with his pantheism. He finds Nature alive capable of feeling and thinking like a human organism. In his 'Ode to the Westwind', Shelley shows the trend of Nature being indefinite and changing as he tells us the Westwind drives the dead leaves, scatter the living seeds , awakening the Mediterranean and the sea plant experiencing it's force. His poetry lacks the pictorial definiteness in the very same manner because his Nature description often gate misted.
Despite his pantheism, Shelley conceives each and every object of Nature as possessing its own spirit of individualism, though he believes in the spirit of love, which could unite the entire world. But in Spite of this he treats each element as a distinguishable identity. Furthermore,as ancient Greek used to give human attributes to the natural objects whom they personified, Shelley also personified them but he always retains their true characteristics. He personified both the Westwind and the Mediterranean, but the haven't lost their true existence as they remain the wind and ocean. They have not been endowed with the human qualities. Shelley's words were very scientific as the Westwind virtually drives the dead leaves as well as scatter the seeds to be grown, the sea plants undoubtedly feel the destructive power of the wind, the clouds do bring the shower, dew drops and hail, thunder and lightening etc.. He observes every object of Nature with a scientific eye although the description comes from a high level of imagination.
  Thus, time and again, Shelley's Nature description comes with a touch of optimism with miseries,torture and pain of the earthly life but still in 'Ode to the Westwind' he hopes for the best and is confident that 'If winter comes can spring be far behind?' . His Nature is multitudinous, scientific, philosophical, intellectual, mythical. So,  Shelley proves him to be a marvelous poet of Nature.