The Fall of Innocence in Hopkins's "Spring and Fall" Anonymous 12th Grade

Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem, "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child," is a beautiful poem written to a young girl. The narrator of the poem notices the girl's youthful innocence, and cannot help but think of the future pains and heartaches she will face. Hopkins uses imagery of the spring and fall seasons to illustrate these themes of life and loss. The poem addresses a child's impending loss of innocence, as she will one day understand the pain that comes with being human.

"Spring and Fall" is a short lyric poem of one stanza and fifteen lines. Hopkins uses a rhyme scheme that forms seven pairs of couplets, with the exception of lines seven through nine, which all rhyme. Therefore, the exact rhyme scheme is AABBCCDDDEEFFGG. One will notice that the three rhyming lines fall exactly in the middle of the poem, making it symmetrical. These three lines also contain the climax of the poem, "And yet you will weep and know why" (1.9). Breaking the otherwise steady rhyme scheme with these lines helps to emphasize the climax. Unlike the rhyme scheme, the poem's meter is not as predictable. Each line has between six and eight syllables with four stresses per line, except for line fifteen, which has only three stresses. Hopkins uses a meter...