Spring Pools

By my reading, “Spring Pools” is about the fleeting quality of spring, in particular, pools that form in spring from melted snow. In this poem, the pools and surrounding flowers are indicators of spring, and spring is associated with pre-lapsarian Eden. That the pools “still reflect/The total sky almost without defect” suggests that they exist as they were originally created as a kind of reflection of heaven. But the Fall is prefigured by pools and flowers that “chill and shiver” at the prospect that they “will soon be gone,” and not by any glorifying flow of river, but by the invidious absorption by unseen roots of “summer woods” with “dark foliage” which will “darken nature” and “blot [them] out.” The poet warns the woods (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) to “think twice before they use their powers” because of the risk that they will become agents of the Fall of nature (from perfect spring, to declining summer, autumn and winter). The decision to absorb the pools amounts to an “original sin” which commences a Fall that will end in winter.

My reading is supported by a reading of Frost’s earlier poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” That poem identifies the color gold as “Nature’s first green,” and associates the fading of gold and subsequent development of leaves with “Eden [sinking] to grief.”

The fleeting quality of all sorts of values, including, among others, spring, youth and beauty, is a common theme of poets from Shakespeare to Housman and Frost.

The poem "Spring Pools" is an expression of Robert Frost's feelings towards the quickly passing season of spring, in particular the pools that form from the melted snow. Frost uses the pools and flowers as indicators of spring, but then mentions that they will soon "chill and shiver". This gives the reader the idea that fall is rapidly approaching, and that the flowers and pools will "soon be gone". The lines “still reflect the total sky almost without defect” suggest that the pools were created as a kind of reflection from heaven. This ties into the lines “let them think twice before they use their powers to blot out and drink up and sweep away” were Robert Frost is ‘warning’ the trees to “think twice” before they absorb all the water. If the trees absorb the pools, this will be a sign that summer, then fall and winter will be coming steadily. Since the season of spring is when the pools form, the trees absorbing the water is the same as them disobeying Frost’s warnings to “think again” which has a deeper meaning of betraying God and committing a sin. At a first glance, the reader of this poem may not be able to interpret the inner importance of it. With the poetic devices used by Frost such as personification (giving the trees human characteristics), repetition ( in the lines "These flowery waters and these watery flowers") and the use of similes (in the lines "And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver…"), it is much easier for the reader to understand, appreciate and associate it with other meanings.