'SRING AND FALL' : TO A YOUNG CHILD - GERALD MANLEY HOPKINS
'Spring and Fall' 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.
Glossary
Title. Fall autumn as used in the American language.
Line 8. wanwood colourless forest
Line 8. leafmeal scattered with, littered with leaves a word coined on the lines of piecemeal
Line 13. ghost spirit (as in 'Holy Ghost')
Line 14. blight cursed end; decay
Explanatory Notes.
Lines 1-9. The child, Margaret, is dismayed at the autumnal fall of leaves in the woods. The poet, with the experience of life behind what he says, consoles her by saying that decay is the rule of all human things. There is a cool acceptance of the inevitable transience in the human world. Mark the conversational mode of the poem and how the speaker is endowed with a sense of superior intelligence, maturity and certitude. The question mark at the end of line four is significant. Hopkins' originality lies in his coining of new words like 'wanwood' which is suggestive of the autumnal wood from which all the summer colours have gone. Another example of new coinage is 'leaves lie leafmeal' on the ground, like 'piecemeal".
Lines 10-15. The child will need to know and experience sorrows and joys with equanimity. Margaret who is crying over the fall of leaves is metaphorically crying over the shortlivedness of all human possessions. The way the speaker views the experiences of spring and fall and the way Margaret views them are bound to be different on account of the 'inscape' each one contains. The speaker's calm acceptance of the transitoriness of all human things and Margaret's weeping and violent protest against it are the result of the 'instress' of each and give rise to the unique ways in which people experience and respond to things.
Conclusion
In this poem Hopkins has used the changing seasons as a metaphor for the integral change we all face.
So hope you all loved this poem by GM Hopkins, which you can read in Graduation.
