The Spring And The Fall

Although the title is "The Spring and the Fall,” Millay's poem, as it turns out, isn’t about the seasons so much as about love. Millay uses these periods of the year to address love: the main theme of the poem.

Love blooms with the spring season in Stanza 1. Springtime means the rebirth of nature, and, in terms of the speaker and her "dear” (Line 2), their love is blossoming, as well. The wet bark of the black trees in Line 3 suggest fecundity: Organic matter needs water to grow, and the dampness of the trees is an image of this.

The link between spring, growth, and love becomes explicit in the final two lines in Stanza 1 when the man gets the speaker a "blossoming peach” (Line 5). The gesture symbolizes his love: He does something valiant for the woman. It's not easy to get the peach; it's out of the way. Yet the man does not mind the inconvenience. He and the speaker are in the springtime, and their love, like the peach tree, is blooming.

In Stanza 2, fall arrives, and the change of seasons represents a change in the relationship. Fall is the season of death, and it's in fall when the couple's love diminishes and disappears.