Millay subverts many of the common symbolic meanings around flowers. Throughout literature and art, creators use flowers to represent rebirth, fertility, and spring's arrival. Millay emphasizes the revival connotations by naming the crocus, representing new beginnings and hope. At the same time, many flowers' short blooming periods make them potent symbols of fleeting youth and life. The speaker sees April offering hope all around her. However, she believes the hope is false and a deception.

In “Spring,” the speaker notices the crocus, the other budding flowers, and the fragrant earth. “What does that signify?”, she asks (Line 10). She then shares an image of maggots eating corpses. The flowers become linked with time's progress, impending death, and wasted potential. The brain while alive blooms with ideas and memories but in death only nourishes maggots. When April arrives, along with another year, it only brings people closer to death. Millay uses this trope to highlight April's false joy. April may bring beauty through the trees and flowers, but readers know these plants will eventually fade.

Millay also carries on a tradition from ancient Greek mythology in her use of flowers. The Greeks remembered the fallen youth Narcissus, Adonis, and Hyacinthus by naming flowers after them.