The trees and roots are symbolic of both death and God. He implores the "trees that have it in their pent-up buds / to darken nature" to "think twice before they use their powers / To blot out and sweep away / These flowery waters." He is literally begging God to reconsider when bringing death upon his children, yet he knows that he is not the force controlling the situation. He knows that his children "will like the flowers beside them soon be gone." The fresh pools, "from snow that melted only yesterday," are spoke of with a touch of nostalgic innocence.
Frost puts both himself and Elinor, in the poem as, "a flower beside [the pools]." In referring to the "pools" as "flowery waters," he is not only showing the parental bond between the "pools" and the "flower[s] beside them," but also intensifying the image that the "pools" are soft, young and innocent. He speaks of their premature death, "not out by any brook or river, / But up by roots to bring dark foliage on" with deep-rooted feelings of loss brought on by his own personal tragedy.
"Spring Pools" contains within its lines the themes of darkness, sadness, and inevitable death. It shows Frost's struggle to control occurrences in his life that are virtually insuperable. At the end of the poem, he slowly comes to terms with the uncertainty of life, and he begins to resolve his feelings of contempt for the collective world. Frost is rarely satisfied or resolved with his choices, however he is accepting of his future uncertainties. At the end of most of Frost's poems, he has generally resolved or come to terms with his emotional and mental turmoil. Many of his works share these same inner conflicts, such as his poem "The Road Not Taken.".
Frost uses "The Road Not Taken" as poem as a metaphor for the mass amount of travelling that he was doing in the period of his life in which it was written. Between 1909-1915, Frost and his family relocated their home twelve times.