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Spring and Fall
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Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry
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Spring and Fall

poem by Hopkins
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Also known as: “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child”
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Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
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Spring and Fall, poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, written in 1880 and published posthumously in 1918 in Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. The poet likens a little girl’s sorrow at the waning of summer to the larger, tragic nature of human life. Set in rhymed couplets, the melancholy poem is a notable example of sprung rhythm, the irregular system of prosody that Hopkins developed.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.