Nature's first green is gold.

• Setting of poem = nature

• Nature's first green = spring, new life

• is gold = precious, special

Her hardest hue to hold.

• The first color we see in spring doesn't stick around for very long.

• This is "her hardest hue to hold"

• "Her" = Mother Nature

Her early leaf's a flower;

• Spring = flowering trees and bushes

• Turn to green leaves in summer

• More metaphor - Mother Nature's first leaf is actually a flower!

Nature's first green is gold.

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

• Flower = symbol of youth; innocence

• Only lasts for a short time before it changes and matures

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

• Subsides = sank down, settled

• Flower > the actual leaf

So Eden sank to grief;

• Allusion = passing reference to someone or something

• Nature is being compared to the Garden of Eden (biblical reference)

• Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden when they sank or fell from God's grace.

So dawn goes down to day.

• Dawn turns into day

• The beauty of day is nothing compared to the golden beauty of the first light of dawn.

Nothing gold can stay.

• Early spring leaves and flowers, Garden of Eden and dawn are all gold.

• None of them can stay for very long in this world.