Spring Storm

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1921

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Spring Storm

Williams’s use of imagery and direct language allows for thorough symbolic explanations of common life events. “Spring Storm” features several strong images, but the first and main image contemplated in the poem is that of the storm itself. The spring storm in this poem has a dual meaning; as a “storm” it naturally indicates some sense of turmoil, darkness, and destruction. Williams opens the poem with an allusion to the turmoil and darkness of the storm: “The sky has given over / its bitterness. / Out of the dark change / all day long” (Lines 1-4). The storm comes from the “dark change” and it gives to the world “its bitterness” in the form of tears, or raindrops. However, in doing this, the storm is also cleansing “its bitterness” from itself, alluding to the other, more optimistic meaning of “spring storm.” A storm that comes on the verge of spring is often meant to be cleansing; it brings water that symbolizes the end of winter and the birth of a new spring. The addition of “spring” in the title and body of the poem provides an optimistic, forward-looking undertone for the poem. While the storm itself may be dark and destructive—that destruction creates the opportunity for new growth, for flowing water to overtake the stagnation of winter.

Snow and Ice

Although the poem references spring in its title, the body of the poem noticeably lacks the expected natural imagery that is usually associated with spring as the season of new life. Instead of focusing on the image of a spring that is newly begun, Williams’s poem is lost in the freeze of the previous season. Literally, “still the snow keeps / its hold on the ground” (Lines 7-8) of the poem, giving the sense that winter is lingering, refusing to melt away or make room for the oncoming spring. Toward the end of “Spring Storm” though, the sheer abundance of water from the storm finally begins to “cuts a way for itself / through green ice in the gutters” (Lines 13-14). The ice and snow symbolically illustrate the overbearing strength of winter. For many, winter feels dark and never-ending; the death and cold it brings can be overwhelm any sense of hope for change, but—as Williams illustrates in “Spring Storm”—the ice of winter (depression, sadness, death) only feels never-ending until it is suddenly over.

The Overhanging Embankment

As the spring storm represents the cleansing power of destruction and the cycle of change brought on by the seasons of life, and the ice represents the overbearing darkness of winter and death, the “overhanging embankment” that appears only at the end of the poem symbolizes the hope for change that comes with the new season. “Drop after drop it falls / from the withered grass-stems / of the overhanging embankment” (Lines 15-17). As the winter ice begins to melt and fall from the dead stems of grass, it begins to reveal the “overhanging embankment” that will, as inevitably as the seasons change, bear life again.