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Edna St. Vincent Millay's Poem 'Spring'

361 Words2 Pages

Spring is universally symbolic for rebirth. Yet Edna St. Vincent Millay, takes a very different perspective in her view in her poem “Spring”. Millay finds the season redundant and agitating. By using negative diction and imagery her message that the beauty of nature can't compensate for the existence of death is extremely clear. Millay's negative diction shows how she feels about life. In her poem, she describes a flower: "The sun is hot on my neck when I observe / The spikes of the crocus" (lines 6-7). Using the word spikes when referencing a spring crocus, Millay adds to her pessimistic tone. In everything beautiful, there is something equally undesirable. Millay personifies spring in the line, "April / Comes like an idiot, babbling

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