Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

"Goldengrove unleaving" evokes the image of a stand of (perhaps) maple trees in Fall, shedding their brilliantly colored leaves. The bittersweet picture – the leaves are beautiful, but being lost – symbolizes the loss of Paradise as per the Biblical narrative. Goldengroves lose leaves in the season of the Fall, which here symbolizes the fall of man or the doctrine of original sin, whereby disobeying God’s wish, Adam and Eve lost Paradise. The leaves represent the things of man, or the things that give humans pleasure and a sense of accomplishment. All such things are meant to be lost. Similarly, because of original sin, humans will keep losing Paradise over and over again, as symbolized by the shedding of the leaves during the season of Fall. Interestingly, Hopkins uses the American “Fall” here, instead of the British word “Autumn” to make more explicit the poem’s Biblical symbolism.

Margaret, the child, represents innocence and youth as well as the state of man before the Fall. In this innocent, idealized state, she is one with the glory of nature and free from the intimation of loss. However, she knows in her bones, even though her mind doesn’t comprehend yet, that this state is meant to be lost.