Summary

“Spring and All” opens by establishing its setting “By the road to the contagious hospital / under the surge of the blue / mottled clouds driven from the northeast-a cold wind” (1-4). As though detailing what his eye sees as he travels along the road, the speaker also notes the items in the distance, how “Beyond,” there is “the / waste of broad, muddy fields / brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen // patches of standing water,” and “the scattering of tall trees” (4-8).

Subsequently, the poem focuses more on the “bushes and small trees / with dead, brown leaves under them” and the “leafless vines – // Lifeless in appearance that are part of the setting as “dazed spring approaches (12-15). The speaker also registers a note of helplessness associated with these elements of the natural setting with how “They enter the new world naked, / cold, uncertain of all” (16-...