‘Spring’ is a beautiful sonnet by G. M. Hopkins. In the octave, Hopkins mentions many of the details of spring that impress him. He gives a series of images one after the other that are typical of the season of spring. ‘Nothing is so beautiful as spring’ is the first line of the poem. This line clearly summarizes the meaning of the first eight lines or octave of the poem. He calls it ‘all this juice and all this joy’.
In the second line he pictures fresh weeds growing through a wheel in a yard. Hopkins celebrates energy in the natural world: ‘weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush’. The ‘w’ and ‘l’ sounds are musical and add to the feeling of energy.
In the third line he praises the speckled colours on a thrushes’ egg. He compares the ‘eggs of a thrush’ to the speckled and cloud patterned sky, a simile. In the next two lines, he shows his delight at the wonderful sound of the thrushes song in the woods and compares its effect to lightning.
In the sixth line he portrays the shiny leaves and blossoms of the pear-tree. In the seventh line he describes the fast moving and richly coloured blue sky. In the eighth line he shows his delight at the playful lambs.
In the sestet, the last six lines, Hopkins looks for the real meaning that lies behind the happiness and energy of nature in springtime. Therefore the sestet develops the thought of the poem. It looks for the meaning behind the beauty. Hopkins finds that nature’s beauty reflects God’s perfect beauty. He then expresses a wish to shelter the beauty and innocence of childhood from sin.
In line nine Hopkins asks the following basic question:
‘What is all this juice and all this joy?’
In line ten, Hopkins quickly answers that it all goes back to the Garden of Eden from the bible. As a priest he believes in the stories of the bible. Spring is like an echo or a reminder of Paradise. ‘A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning in Eden garden’
In line eleven he begins a prayer. He prays God...