“Spring.” G. M. Hopkins. How to Deconstruct Hopkins’ Poem. Master of Words and Images.

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Spring is a fourteen line poem in a Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet format of an octet (eight line stanza) and a sestet (six line stanza), with a rhyme scheme abbaabba cdcdcd, and a variation of iambic pentameter meter. ¹

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The first line of Spring establishes the tone and content of the poem, exuberance and the Spring season.

There follows examples of Spring’s beauty, described almost ecstatically. The first image is a marvel of sound and sense. The w’s and ee’s of When weeds in wheels echo the tight new spirals of growth when some weeds first emerge, followed by an equally onomatopoetic² description of the weed’s expanding growth (shoot long) from the spirals into an elongated plant of long and lovely stem and leaves. The alliterative³ “el” sounds–called liquids because of their elongation with the tongue– with the open vowel sounds following them echo the stretching quality of the weed as it grows to be long and lovely and lush. A rightfully oft-quoted line. The next line, in contrast, uses “el” sounds followed by short, closed vowels to describe small thrush eggs, which in their blueness look like little pieces of heaven, an introduction to the spiritual aspect of the poem. The poem now shifts from visual to auditory (sound) imagery. The song of the thrush is so pervasive as it echoes through the woods (timber) that with a cleansing quality it rinses and wrings (with pun on “rings”) the ear of other sounds, striking the ear like a little lightning. The stanza concludes with kinetic (having to do with movement) imagery: glassy (shiny new) peartree leaves and blooms wave (brush) across the intensely blue (all in a rush/With richness) sky (descending blue); running (racing) and leaping (fling) lambs. The alliterative sounds of these lines–the b’s, r’s, and f’s– along with the meter add musicality, a dance of Spring.

In a Petrarchan Sonnet this is typically a shift (called a volta, or turn) in content from the octet to the sestet, the octet having delineated the theme of the poem, the sestet providing commentary or conclusion. In this case the shift is from earthly to spiritual (Hopkins was a Catholic priest).

The first line is a rhetorical question, asking for an explanation for Spring’s urgency (juice) and exuberance (joy), the alliteration of the j’s and the following long vowels echoing intensity. The answer is that it is a reflection (strain) of Man’s “springtime” (the earth’s sweet being in the beginning, the b’s, g’s, and meter perhaps suggesting the effort of birth ) in the Garden of Eden. He appeals to Christ, lord, to intercede (have, get) on behalf of the innocence (Innocent mind) and youth (Mayday) of girls and boys –who are in their Springtime of life–before those qualities begin to surfeit (cloy), degrade (cloud), and sour —with the unpleasantness of those words’ sounds)— through sinning (the residue of Man’s Fall), as Spring will inevitably give way to Summer, Autumn, and Winter. The speaker continues his appeal, in the conclusion, that children are most worthy (worthy the winning) of Christ’s (maid’s child) intervention (Most..thy choice) since they still carry reminiscences of the original innocence of the Garden of Eden.

Hopkins: the master of words and images.

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1. lines with five iambic feet—each containing one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one (ta-DUM ta-DUM ta-DUM ta-DUM ta-DUM). This 10-syllable pattern is often likened to a heartbeat. ↩︎
2. describes words that imitate natural sounds to create a vivid, sensory effect in writing or speech ↩︎
3. the repetition of the same initial consonant sound or letter in close proximity to create rhythm, musicality, or emphasis. ↩︎

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