sed onto
6 Spring and Fall
-Gerard Manley Hopkins
I want to know the meaning of the poem
Answers
Answer: 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.
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