Original artwork, not a still
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf, So Eden sank to grief; So dawn goes down to day, Nothing gold can stay.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Early beauty is precious because it cannot remain in its first form. Leaves, dawn and the remembered loss of Eden repeat the movement from a brief beginning into change. The closing line gathers those examples into a limit: the brightest stage of something is also passing.
Context reviewed
