Spring and Fall – by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 -1889)

to a young child

This poem is very famous and is taught in all the English classes in high school. Unfortunately, when we were in high school, we were too ignorant to really appreciate it.

Okay, not all of us were ignorant in high school, but I think it’s safe to say that many of us found this old poetry hard to understand with its twisted and jumbled sentence structure.

Here’s an example from Hopkins’ poem:

Leaves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Why couldn’t the poets of that time, especially the English, just “speak English”? In those high school days, I remember thinking, what’s the good of a poem if I need someone to translate it to me (from English to English)? I still feel that way a little bit, but now, decades later, I can appreciate the language of poetry better.

BUT, having suffered through trying to understand this poem as a young adult, I now think of it every year at this time. As soon as our maple tree starts to lose its leaves, I find myself thinking (and my name is not Margaret),

“Margaret, are you grieving,

Over Goldengrove unleaving?”

And I always end up thinking, how incredibly sad it is to see those first leaves fluttering down, and I realize,

“It is Margaret that you mourn for.”

Here is Hopkins’ poem:

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.

***** 

I have learned to appreciate good poetry, but I tend to like the kind that is more fun and less serious. Limericks, funny ditties, rhyming fun.

Still, I have my favourite serious poems too, which I hope to share with you sometime soon.

How do you feel about poetry?