The blue plaque, painted as a part of
the mural, tells us:
The
Soho
Mural
'Ode to the West Wind'
1989
Louise Vines for
London
Wall
01 737 4948
The London Mural Preservation Society
website [visit
link] tells us:
"Ode to the West Wind
Soho 1989
by Louise Vines. Co-Seal.
An abstract reference to a local’s
poem
On a wander around the Berwick
street area of Soho, many people are surprised to find a large mural on the
gable of a Georgian house. The mural depicts a large tree with a person sitting
to one side, reading a book. The tree has split in half. Upon reading the
painted plague underneath the main panel, the reference in the painting start to
make sense.
The mural is called ’Ode to the
west Wind’; this refers to the poem written by Percey Bysshe Shelley in 1819.
Shelley lived for a while in Soho, around the corner from the mural in no. 15
Poland Street. The mural was painted by London Wall Mural group in 1989 led by
artist Louise Vines. The piece is to be seen as ‘reflective and optimistic’. In
the picture, a person sits with a book, perhaps thinking about the poem. They
wear colours referenced in the ode; “yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic
red”. The broken tree illustrates’ “O wild west wind, thou breath of Autumn’s
being.... Destroyer and preserver ; hear oh hear” and also alludes to the Great
Storm of 1987, a hurricane which crossed the South of England with winds up to
120 mph, it killed 18 people and downed an estimated 15 million
trees.
This mural started life in 1986
when the Soho Jazz Festival approached London Wall Mural group with an idea of a
painting to act as a lasting reminder of the festival and a contribution to the
40th Anniversary celebrations in Westminster. However insufficient funds were
available and it wasn’t until the Soho Society took up the idea that things
moved forward. The leaseholder, occupants and freeholder of the building all had
to approve the mural before anything could happen.
Work began in 1989 using co-seal
paint from Scotland to create the mural. The colours have lasted well and it
continues to add something different to the Soho area.
Condition
There is little sign of fading or
however there are water marks down the mural."
The same web page also tells
us:
"Where to find it
17 Noel Street W1
From Tottenham Court Road Tube
station, take a left and walk down Oxford street. Turn down the sixth street on
your left. This street is called Poland Street. Walk down until you hit the
first junction. The mural is straight ahead."
The Poets website [visit link] list the
ode:
"I
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 wingèd 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, O hear!
II
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: O hear!
III
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 grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
IV
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.
V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?