Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem Spring and Fall depicts a child coming to terms with death, and the speaker makes that child aware of their maturing and mortality. 

Acknowledging the fact that this poem is addressed to a child is already engaging in itself. It is common for a child to eventually grapple with the concept that they will one day die, just as everything will. This is articulated in the poem through the opening lines, which suggest the child is saddened by the leaves falling.

This is quite interesting as the poem’s title invokes a cyclical nature, Spring and Fall. This is a constant cycle, which begs the question, what changes? How is this poem about mortality if there is an endless cycle of birth and death? The answer is this child, Margaret, is mortal. While the nature of children, in general, is cyclical, with them being born each year and coming to terms with the world that surrounds them and for them to have more children, which repeats the process, the nature of a specific child isn’t. For the first time, Margaret can comprehend that nothing lasts. This is a problematic notion for a child to grow out of, as when one is born, they are led to believe that everything around them is constant. This concept fades with maturity, referenced in the lines “as the heart grows older / It will come to such sights colder” (6-7). 

It is also interesting that the poem gradually increases its complexity from the beginning to the end, just as a child can comprehend more complex concepts as they age. It starts by just talking about the leaves falling and how it may be sad to see this, but it grows into all things dying and that Margaret, the child, will die at one point, too. This is particularly interesting as, realistically, Margaret wouldn’t be able to understand all of these concepts as she has yet to reach that level. As readers, however, we have a particular insight into the awakening that she will one day have.