The speaker is implicitly the primary character of “Spring and All,” but with the lack of pronouns, first-person or third-person, it is difficult to designate with absolute certainty the perspective of the speaker. However, the minute visual details, frequent enjambment, and unevenly grouped stanzas give the poem a stream-of-consciousness quality. The speaker, as such, comes across as intensely interested in the workings of his own mind, the thoughts that occur with various fits and starts throughout the poem.

As for the speaker’s tone, it takes on a slight quality of despondency. He seems to put particular focus on images associated with decay and stagnation, the representations of breaking down rather than building up. For example, he specifically notes “the / waste of broad, muddy fields / brown with dried weeds” and devotes a large part of the middle section of the poem contemplating the implications of the "leafless...