“Poets, the best of them, are a very chameleonic race.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Poets, the best of them, are a very chameleonic race.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? — Percy Bysshe Shelley, from “Ode to the West Wind” Shelley was born on this day in 1792. I have just spent over a year de…