Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 14-15
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
- The speaker says that these sources of sadness are common to everyone. It is the "blight," or sorrow, that everyone is "born for."
- So, in the end, even though Margaret thinks that she's crying over the dying leaves, she's really crying over her own mortality. She's mourning herself, in a weird way.
- Not a particularly bright note to end on, but there ya go, kid. We're all gonna die. Good times!