Approach Of Winter - Analysis

Introduction and overall impression

The poem presents a quiet, observant moment as autumn yields to winter. The tone is cool, restrained, and slightly elegiac, shifting from collective motion in the trees to a small, vivid detail in the garden. There is a sense of inevitability—movement and loss balanced by a stubbornness in the surviving color.

Context and authorial note

William Carlos Williams, an American modernist known for precise, imagistic lines, often focuses on everyday scenes rendered with clarity. This short lyric reflects his interest in concrete observation rather than abstract meditation.

Main themes: change, resistance, and transience

Change appears in the wind's action on "half-stripped trees" and leaves that "fall," signaling seasonal transition. Resistance is shown by leaves that "refuse to let go," and by the salvias' "hard carmine" that persists at the garden's edge. Transience is underscored by the movement verbs—"struck," "bending," "flutter," "driven"—which emphasize impermanence even as color momentarily endures.

Imagery and symbolic details

The poem hinges on two contrasting images: the massed, windy trees and the bright salvias. The trees and scattered leaves suggest collective, impersonal forces of nature; the salvias, described as "hard carmine—like no leaf that ever was—", function as a concentrated symbol of stubborn life or aesthetic defiance. The simile "like no leaf that ever was" isolates the flowers as almost otherworldly, intensifying their role as a counterpoint to decay.

Ambiguity and interpretive possibility

The salvias' uncanny description invites a question: are they a consolation against loss or a stubborn refusal to submit to winter's logic? This ambiguity allows the flower to read as either hopeful persistence or poignant anomaly amid decline.

Conclusion and final insight

The poem compresses a seasonal shift into a single clear image: sweeping, indifferent movement juxtaposed with a flash of determined color. Williams's precise details turn a common scene into a reflection on endurance and the small, resistant beauties that punctuate inevitable change.