"Spring and Fall"

[helenwyler]

Right now next door are having a huge gum tree cut down as its roots are up to three times as long as its height and are causing subsidence. I'm very sad to see it go and remembered this poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins.

"Spring and Fall" (1880)
Gerard Manly Hopkins

To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
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 a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and 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 man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.



Summary
The poem opens with a question to a child: "Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving?" "Goldengrove," a place whose name suggests an idyllic play-world, is "unleaving," or losing its leaves as winter approaches. And the child, with her "fresh thoughts," cares about the leaves as much as about "the things of man." The speaker reflects that age will alter this innocent response, and that later whole "worlds" of forest will lie in leafless disarray ("leafmeal," like "piecemeal") without arousing Margaret's sympathy. The child will weep then, too, but for a more conscious reason. However, the source of this knowing sadness will be the same as that of her childish grief--for "sorrow's springs are the same." That is, though neither her mouth nor her mind can yet articulate the fact as clearly as her adult self will, Margaret is already mourning over her own mortality.

Hope the summary doesn't annoy - I like to read them just to see if I agree!

Enjoy!