Gerard Manely Hopkins

Of Gerard Hopkins' poems, I found Spring and Fall to be very interesting and enjoyable. This poem begins with the speaker questioning a young child, Margaret, who is unhappy because the leaves are falling. The speaker says, "Margaret, are you grieving/ Over Goldengrove unleaving?"(776). Margaret's grieving outlines her innocence. She realizes that as the leaves are falling, they are dying, and therefore, she feels remorse for them. Only the innocence and naivety of a child could experience anxiety over the fate of a simple leaf as if it were of "the things of man"(776). The older speaker tells Margaret:

"Ah! as your heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie"(776).

As one grows older, they come to realize that all things come to an end. Everything will eventually die. Age will alter the innocent response conveyed by Margaret. Later in her life, Margaret will witness forests carpeted with dead leaves and such a scene will not evoke any sympathy from her. These leaves can represent man. Just as leaves fall from the tree and die, people will also inevitably fall from existence and die. It is interesting that Gerard chose to title his poem Spring and Fall, rather than using the British term "autumn." I believe he does this so that he may link autumn decay with the biblical fall of man from grace. Gerard also juxtaposes this "fall" with the spring-like child nature, one associated with freshness, innocence, and young emotion. Because Margaret is so young, she feels a bond with nature that allows her connect to it in an intimate way giving her feelings of remorse when she sees it decay. This youthful communion with nature reminds me of William Wordsworth's poem, Tintern Abbey, where he writes of his former communion with nature. Wordsworth's child perspective allowed him to become completely immersed in nature, such that in was his "all in all"(204). 

As the poem continues, the speaker uncovers the true reason why Margaret weeps. Even as she grows older, she will continue to cry over the same things, but now while she is still young, she cannot fully understand why she experiences this remorse. The speaker claims:

"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"(776). 

Margaret's heart knew why she was weeping, but her mind and mouth were yet too innocent to understand. The final lines reveal to Margaret the reason for her sadness. The origin of her remorse will be the same as that of her childish grief because, "sorrow's springs are the same"(776). Upon adulthood, Margaret will be conscious of the reason behind her grief- she is truly mourning her own mortality. For just as the leaves have an end, Margaret's heart knows that she too will have an end. This must have been such a dreadful and scary conclusion for a child to encounter, a conclusion that Hopkin's must have remembered experiencing for himself. Margaret represents a stage that every person must reach in comprehending mortality and loss. These stages are just like the passing of seasons. In the spring, the children like new leaves are naive and innocent and as fall approaches each child now aware and more adult-like falls from the tree of life, like a leaf falls among the infinite number of other leaves that had fallen before him.