Spring and Fall -- a Poetry Friday post
As I noted the other day, it's well and truly autumn here. I know, of course, that "nothing gold can stay", and that the leaves are dying; yet they are so lovely just before they go.
It put me in mind of this passage from Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility:
'And how does dear, dear Norland look?' cried Marianne.
'Dear, dear Norland,' said Elinor, 'probably looks much as it always does at this time of year. The woods and walks thickly covered with dead leaves.'
'Oh!' cried Marianne, 'with what transporting sensations have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight.'
'It is not every one,' said Elinor, 'who has your passion for dead leaves.'
~Sense and Sensibility, Vol. I, ch. XVI
Indeed, it is not everyone who has my passion for dead leaves, reminding us all of mortality and the passage of time and the coming of winter, both real and metaphorical. Someone who "got" the whole tie between autumn and the time passage/mortality thing was Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose poems "The Windhover" and "Spring" I've previously posted. Today's selection is "Spring and Fall: To a young child", which Hopkins composed while walking to Liverpool to catch the train.
Spring and Fall
by Gerard Manley 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.
*Goldgengrove: a grove of golden trees, yes, but probably also a reference to Golden Grove, in Carmarthenshire, Wales, the home of Anglican bishop and author, Jeremy Taylor, who'd written a book of daily prayers in the 1600s entitled The Golden Grove.
**unleaving: a variant on "unleafing", referring to the loss of leaves. Could mean leaves from a tree or leaves of paper from a book (the unravelling of faith, perhaps, or poetry); undoubtedly intended to have a double meaning, in that young Margaret is not yet leaving the Golden Grove of youth
***wanwood: dark forest
****leafmeal: fallen leaves that have decayed to the point of appearing as meal on the forest floor
The poem is written in rhymed couplets, and is fifteen lines long: Lines 7, 8 & 9 are the culprits where the extra line occurs: "By and by, nor spare a sigh/Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;/And yet you will weep and know why." I'd argue that the third repetition there, followed by a period, rather than a question mark or something less stopped, like a semi-colon, is there to break the poem in two by slowing things down with that third rhymed line and stopping them temporarily with that period. Up to line nine is the exposition of the question; the answer is what follows.
The poem uses "sprung rhythm", Manley's "invention" based on Anglo-Saxon poetry that used a lot of alliteration and lines which had a caesura in the middle, and two stressed syllables per half. (For more on the Anglo-Saxon poetic devices, see my post about Beowulf and Sir Gawain over at Guys Lit Wire.)
As a convert to Catholicism and a Jesuit priest, Hopkins was concerned with Old Testament issues like the Fall of Man, original sin, and the notion of paradise lost. In his closing six lines, which form the answer, this may be what Hopkins is referring to. In that case, "sorrow's springs" would be a reference to the sorrow that stems from having lost the Garden of Eden, and regret for the original "fall". But he could also (or instead) be speaking of aging and mortality, in which case sorrow springs from the loss of youth and innocence, and Margaret mourns her own losses (whether they are losses of youth, innocence, or faith).
It put me in mind of this passage from Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility:
'And how does dear, dear Norland look?' cried Marianne.
'Dear, dear Norland,' said Elinor, 'probably looks much as it always does at this time of year. The woods and walks thickly covered with dead leaves.'
'Oh!' cried Marianne, 'with what transporting sensations have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight.'
'It is not every one,' said Elinor, 'who has your passion for dead leaves.'
~Sense and Sensibility, Vol. I, ch. XVI
Indeed, it is not everyone who has my passion for dead leaves, reminding us all of mortality and the passage of time and the coming of winter, both real and metaphorical. Someone who "got" the whole tie between autumn and the time passage/mortality thing was Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose poems "The Windhover" and "Spring" I've previously posted. Today's selection is "Spring and Fall: To a young child", which Hopkins composed while walking to Liverpool to catch the train.
Spring and Fall
by Gerard Manley 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.
*Goldgengrove: a grove of golden trees, yes, but probably also a reference to Golden Grove, in Carmarthenshire, Wales, the home of Anglican bishop and author, Jeremy Taylor, who'd written a book of daily prayers in the 1600s entitled The Golden Grove.
**unleaving: a variant on "unleafing", referring to the loss of leaves. Could mean leaves from a tree or leaves of paper from a book (the unravelling of faith, perhaps, or poetry); undoubtedly intended to have a double meaning, in that young Margaret is not yet leaving the Golden Grove of youth
***wanwood: dark forest
****leafmeal: fallen leaves that have decayed to the point of appearing as meal on the forest floor
The poem is written in rhymed couplets, and is fifteen lines long: Lines 7, 8 & 9 are the culprits where the extra line occurs: "By and by, nor spare a sigh/Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;/And yet you will weep and know why." I'd argue that the third repetition there, followed by a period, rather than a question mark or something less stopped, like a semi-colon, is there to break the poem in two by slowing things down with that third rhymed line and stopping them temporarily with that period. Up to line nine is the exposition of the question; the answer is what follows.
The poem uses "sprung rhythm", Manley's "invention" based on Anglo-Saxon poetry that used a lot of alliteration and lines which had a caesura in the middle, and two stressed syllables per half. (For more on the Anglo-Saxon poetic devices, see my post about Beowulf and Sir Gawain over at Guys Lit Wire.)
As a convert to Catholicism and a Jesuit priest, Hopkins was concerned with Old Testament issues like the Fall of Man, original sin, and the notion of paradise lost. In his closing six lines, which form the answer, this may be what Hopkins is referring to. In that case, "sorrow's springs" would be a reference to the sorrow that stems from having lost the Garden of Eden, and regret for the original "fall". But he could also (or instead) be speaking of aging and mortality, in which case sorrow springs from the loss of youth and innocence, and Margaret mourns her own losses (whether they are losses of youth, innocence, or faith).