SPRING AND FALL

Gerard Manley Hopkins

THE TEXT

To a young child 

Margaret, are you grieving[1] 
Over Goldengrove[2] unleaving[3]? 
Leaves, like the things of man, you 
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? 
Ah! as the heart grows older 
It will come to such sights colder 
By and by, nor spare[4] a sigh 
Though worlds of wanwood[5] leafmeal[6] lie; 
And yet you will weep know why. 
Now no matter, child, the name: 
Sorrow’s springs are the same. 
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed 
What heart heard of, ghost guessed: 
It is the blight[7] man was born for, 
It is Margaret you mourn for.

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[1] Grieving: Being sad

[2] Goldengrove: A place whose name suggests an idyllic play-world, orchard

[3] Unleaving: Losing the leaves, being bare

[4] Spare: Withhold

[5] Wanwood: Pale trees

[6] Leafmeal: Disorganized state

[7] Blight: Destructive force

ABOUT THE WRITER

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) in an English poet, whose work expresses an intense response to the natural world, and innovations in technique produced an intricately woven tapestry of language that embodied this response.

Hopkins was born in Strartford, Essex (near London). He was educated at Balliol College, University of Oxford, where in 1866 he converted to Roman Catholicism. Upon entering the Jesuit order two years later, he destroyed the poetry he had already written. Between 1874 and 1877 as a student of theology in northern Wales, Hopkins learned Welsh; inspired by the language and by its poetry, he began to write again (but only after his superiors in the church encouraged him to do so). One of his initial efforts was "The Wreck of the Deutschland" (1875). This long religious poem, about the martyrdom of a group of shipwrecked German nuns, evinces the first use of techniques perfected by Hopkins in later works such as "The Windhover," "Pied Beauty," "Duns Scotus' Oxford," and "Henry Purcell." These lyrics are attempts to capture the uniqueness-or inscape, as Hopkins termed it-of natural objects, by the use of internal rhyme, alliteration, and compound metaphor and by the use of "sprung rhythm." It seems abrupt in contrast to the running rhythm typical of the poetry of his time, approximates the stresses of natural speech. It differs from the conventional system of regular number of stressed and unstressed syllables per foot.

In 1877 Hopkins was ordained in the Jesuit order and served as a parish priest and teacher in England and Scotland before becoming a professor of Greek at University College, Dublin, Ireland, in 1884. His unhappy years in Ireland, shadowed by overwork and ill heath, produced a series of poems known as the "terrible sonnets," with a few exceptions, Hopkins's poems were not published during his lifetime; they were read only by friends and fellow poets. After his death his friend the poet laureate Robert Bridges anthologized a selection of Hopkins's work. The collected editions was published in 1917; a second, complete, edition appeared in 1930, whereupon his work received due recognition and established its influence on 20th-century English poetry.

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

In developing a summary of Hopkins's poem, profound (Showing intellectual penetration or emotional depth) observations reveal themselves.  The speaker of the poem, presumably Hopkins, is interacting with a young child, Margaret, who is crying because of the shedding (throwing) of the leaves. The speaker addresses Margaret and says that she is now grieving over the falling of leaves at Goldengrove and the turning of seasons. He further adds; she may not now be able to understand or name the source of her grief. But, when she gets older, though, and learns more of the world, she will become less sensitive to external things and more aware of the true loss in human life-the loss of oneself. He also says that crying over the fallen leaves means something else: it shows that Margaret is starting to think about mortality and, yes, her own eventual death. So, in this sense this poem is about death, addressed to a young child.

This short poem speaks articulately (eloquently) of the human condition. The true tragedy, according to Hopkins, is self-estrangement (the feeling of being alienated from other people) and, therefore, estrangement from God, who is the source of the self. The speaker asks the young child, if she is feeling sad about the leaves falling off of the trees in a forest he calls "Goldengrove." Goldengrove has a very magical, fairyland kind of sound to it. And the repeated "g" sound in the name also creates alliteration. Hopkins points out that at this moment in Margaret's life, such events cause her to feel pain.  However, such a condition is going to change over time:  "as the heart grows older/ It will come to such sights colder/ by and by nor spare a sigh/ Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie."  Hopkins suggests that Margaret's change over time will move from a mourning of the specific to a more universal condition of sadness and pain:  "It is the blight man was born for, / It is Margaret you mourn for." The poem is one where Margaret is forced to confront her own mortality.  Hopkins suggests that even at the youngest of ages, such an experience causes pain that moves the individual to understand the universal condition of hurt intrinsic (belonging to a thing by its very nature) to what it means to be human.

This poem has a lyrical rhythm appropriate for an address to a child. Hopkins's idea of addressing this poem "to a young child" is particularly striking. He merges the experience of the child with the larger context of the human predicament.  He is able to take a child's experience and merge it into a condition that displays the pain and frustration of being a human being. Like Margaret, we are born into a world where we find love and experience that which gives us pleasure.  Like Margaret, we eventually confront the realization that such experiences are transient and not permanent.  Finally, like Margaret, we mourn for our own condition of being, our own reality in which pain is the only constant.  Hopkins does not embrace the idea that childhood is a permanent state of blissful happiness.  Rather, Hopkins shows childhood to be a smaller version of the human experience that underscores the world and our place in it.  This is profound in how it speaks to the "spring and fall" of the human experience, amounting to a study of life and death.

Hopkins has made a profound (of the greatest intensity; complete) observation in the connection between the natural world and that of human being.  Hopkins sees the pain inherent to the life cycle present in both.  Human beings can learn much from the natural world.  The demonstration of life and death is something paralleled in the human experience. To understand and acknowledge this is profound.  It is for this reason that when Margaret weeps for herself at the end of poem, it is an understanding that the world is no different than the leaves of the trees for whom she initially weeps.  It means that to be human is reflective of the natural world, showing that despite the trappings (fixings) of mortality, we are no different than any other element that lives and dies in nature. Likewise, Hopkins’s choice of the American word “fall” rather than the British “autumn” is deliberate; it links the idea of autumnal decline or decay with the biblical Fall of man from grace.

Hopkins uses the understanding of a child to explain how we all feel as we deal with death in our own way. He shows that even if we do not understand the death, we perceive, as Margaret has no name for this event, we understand it is our very spirit. He warps this all up with a deep reflection on man's mortality. He reasons that the very pain that Margaret feels is the remorse and grief she has for mankind, including herself, who must inevitably pass away from this world just like the leaves.

The narrator in the poem does nothing to soothe the young girl, instead choosing to relate to her and understand her youthful interpretation of the events unfolding before her eyes. He recognizes Margaret's innocence and takes an interest in how the child is taking her first step towards maturity, whether that maturity is really beneficial or not.