Late Spring

loss hope free verse melancholic reflective

Late Spring - meaning Summary

Persistence Despite Barrenness

Judith Wright's poem observes a storm-damaged pear tree that nonetheless blossoms. The speaker links that stubborn flowering to the moon and to women’s beliefs, treating the branch as a symbol of enduring beauty and hope. She gathers the fruitless blossoms as tokens, acknowledging persistence without productive reward. The poem registers resilience, longing, and a compassionate acceptance of forms of fertility that are symbolic rather than literal.

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The moon drained white by day lifts from the hill where the old pear-tree fallen in storm springs up in blossom still. Women believe in the moon: this branch I hold is not more white and still than she whose flower is ages old, and so I carry home flowers from the pear that makes such obstinate tokens still for fruit it cannot bear.