Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1918

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form, Meter and Rhyme

The poem is short, with only 15 lines arranged in one unbroken stanza. The rhyme scheme is AABBCCDDDEEFFGG, dividing the poem into a series of couplets neatly interrupted in the middle (Lines 7-9) by one rhyming tercet (three-line verse). The standalone tercet serves to emphasize the poem’s turn towards its resolution, the first glimpse to its final reveal. The three lines end with the meaningful words “And yet you will weep and know why” (Line 9); the lines show that the “why” behind Margaret’s grief can be known. The poem’s final line, with its alliterating “m” sound states the answer to which the tercet alludes: “It is Margaret you mourn for” (Line 15). The poem’s lines are enjambed: the central thought of a line runs into another. For the most part the enjambments are regular.

While the rhyme and enjambment is regular, the poem’s meter is unusual with different lines containing a different number of stressed syllables. The poem uses “sprung rhythm,” an original meter which Hopkins adapted from oral poetry and Welsh literature. In sprung rhythm, each metrical foot begins with a stressed syllable that may be followed by a cluster of stressed or unstressed syllables. (In regular English rhyming verse, the meter tends to be more uniform.) Sprung rhythm follows the conventions of speech; to denote its stresses Hopkins often uses accents and stress marks in his poem, such as in the first line of “Spring and Fall”: “Márgarét, áre you grieving.” Here the first syllable of “are” is stressed, which in usual scansion would be an unstressed syllable.

Alliteration and Consonance

Like much of Hopkins’s work, “Spring and Fall” is meant to be read aloud and remembered. Accordingly, the poem is rich with auditory literal devices that make it memorable and pleasant to say and hear. Alliteration, where initial sounds are repeated close together, occurs often in the poem, in words and phrases like “Goldengrove” (Line 2) and “spare a sigh” (Line 7), and the memorable lines “Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; / And yet you wíll weep and know why” (Lines 7-8). Another instance of alliteration is seen in Line 13: “What heart heard of, ghost guessed.” Not only does the alliteration add musicality to the verse, it draws the reader’s attention to important words, such as goldengrove and wanwood, so significant in the poem. The alliterated sounds weave in with instances of consonance (repeated consonant sounds) to enrich the poem’s musical quality. In the opening lines, consonant “g” and “v” sounds are repeated, the contrast between the guttural “g” and the sharp “v” immediately establishing the tension in the poem: “Márgarét, áre you grieving/ Over Goldengrove unleaving?/ Leáves like the things of man …” (Lines 1-2).

Metaphor, Simile, and Imagery

The poem uses both explicit (simile) and implicit (metaphor) comparisons to create layers of meaning. The “spring” and “fall” of the title itself are metaphors for childhood and adulthood, life and mortality, innocence and knowledge. The “Goldengrove” (Line 2) is a metaphor for the Garden of Eden, while “wanwood” (Line 7) is a metaphor for the mortal world of death and decay. The expression “worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie” (Line 7) also works as a metaphor, implicitly comparing the dead woods and dying world to a fallen corpse rotting to mulch and meal. A simile occurs in Line 3 when the speaker uses the connector “like’ to compare the falling leaves with the “things of man.” Leaves are called the things of man because they are perishable. Thus, the idea of humanity itself is associated with death and mortality.

Hopkins involves the senses of sound, sight, and touch to bring the poem’s vivid imagery alive. Goldengrove is an evocative word that immediately recalls a stand of golden-leaved trees in the fall, while wanwood – “wan” associated with a sick, pale pallor, and wood with brittleness – evokes a cold, dying forest. (The grove turns into wanwood, the living trees into dead wood). In an example of synesthesia or a figure of speech that mixes the senses, the “sights” of shedding forests are described as “colder” (Line 6). Again, these cold sights evoke an imagery of abandoned, dark, and chilly forests, deepening the poem’s melancholy atmosphere. Yet, the poet also emphasizes that death and life aren’t polar opposites but function as a continuum. In Line 11, Hopkins uses the contradictory phrase “sorrow’s springs,” associating mortality and grief with “springs,” a verb closely linked with spring, which in the poem is a metaphor for youth. “Springs,” used here in the sense of origins, also evokes the image of a dynamic, bubbling water body. Additionally, sorrow’s springs also evokes the picture of tears springing from the eyes. In one short sentence, the poet creates a range of images that explain the complex nature of human existence. In the moment it is beautiful, and the moment must be savored, yet one cannot lose sight of the ephemeral nature of such moments.