The Spring and the Fall by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Summary: The Spring and the Fall by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a poem about love and how the speaker sees it in the Spring and the Fall

Characters:

Speaker - Speaks of her feelings of the heart in the Spring and the Fall and then summarizes them together

Verse 1:

The speaker talks of the spring of the year as she walks on the road "beside" the one she loves
The speaker notices the wet parts of the tree and how dark they were in the spring
The speaker talks about how her "dear" would go out of the way for her to make her happy

Verse 2:

The speaker talks of the fall of the year as she walks on the road "beside" the one she loves
The noise that the crows (rooks) make come to her attention in the fall
The one she calls dear makes fun of her when she praises things, and little by little breaks her heart

Verse 3:

The speaker says that year after year there are things that she expects like dark barks and bird's trills
She recalls things that she likes to think as "fine" in praise
She grieves of losing her love in little ways

Other Notes:

Edna St. Vincent Millay is known for her poems of love
Rooks are crows
Edna St. Vincent ties in her speaker's love with times of the year when life springs and the time of the year when it is the dusk of life
In spring it seems everything is blooming and brand new, as is the feelings of her love for her dear
In fall it seems the things that were once blooming in spring are now being picked at and are beginning to fall away like perhaps the leaves of a maple tree or in the form of the speaker's love making fun of her for liking and "praising" certain things