"Written at the Close of Spring"

Stephanie Chang 1A
-1784
-Written in Shakespearean sonnet form
-Begins with nature in the first 2 quatrains and jumps to questions of humanity in the 3rd quatrain
-sad and melancholic tone
-Human life can be represented through nature
-correlates the fleeting beauty of nature with that of the beauty and vulnerability of humans
-Nature is paralleled to human innocence, but while nature can be renewed with the coming of Spring in a cycle that recurs year after year, innocence has no "second Spring" and instead fades away because of "tyrant passion and corrosive care"