Frequently, Shelley goes to the out of-door world to find in her symbols for his own thoughts and emotions.

His poetry acquires a singular force and power when one of his major passions finds its symbol in nature. He own personality is merged and fused with some nature-object and he attributes to it what goes on within his own consciousness.

Thus the West Wind, ever restless and moving like Shelley himself, is emblematic of his faith in the future emancipation of mankind, of regeneration following close on the heels of destruction; the cloud of his belief in immortality and his yearning for some kind of supernal status; and the skylark of his hopefulness forth emancipation of mankind through the efforts of poet-prophets.

In Adonis, “pansies” are the symbols of his sad thoughts, and “violets” of his modesty and innocence. The snake and the eagle in his poetry recurrently stand for the good and the evil respectively.