Poetry & Analysis
Short Poems About Flowers and Change
Nature PoemsNothing Gold Can Stay
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.
Overview Short Summary
Nature’s earliest and brightest stages disappear quickly. A first leaf briefly resembles a flower before settling into ordinary green.
Craft Literary Devices
Metaphor links early green with gold and leaf with flower. The allusion to Eden expands a seasonal observation into a statement about innocence and loss.
Afternoon on a Hill
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!
Overview Short Summary
The speaker spends an afternoon quietly noticing flowers, cliffs, clouds, grass, wind, and distant town lights. She enjoys the landscape without needing to possess or disturb it.
Reader Takeaway Healing and Mindfulness
The poem models calm attention. Touching flowers without picking them allows joy to exist alongside care and restraint.
Flower in the Crannied Wall
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
Overview Short Summary
Tennyson holds a tiny flower and imagines that complete understanding of its existence would also reveal the deepest truths about God, humanity, and creation.
Craft Repetition and Meaning
The repetition of “root and all” stresses the desire for complete rather than superficial knowledge. The small flower becomes a doorway into the largest philosophical questions.
Four-Leaf Clover
I know a place where the sun is like gold,
And the cherry blooms burst with snow,
And down underneath is the loveliest nook,
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.
One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith,
And one is for love, you know,
And God put another in for luck—
If you search, you will find where they grow.
But you must have hope, and you must have faith,
You must love and be strong—and so—
If you work, if you wait, you will find the place
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker imagines a golden place filled with cherry blossom and four-leaf clover. Finding it requires hope, faith, love, strength, work, and patience.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Hope and faith: These qualities guide the search.
- Patient effort: Good fortune is connected with working and waiting.
- Love and strength: The poem treats character as part of genuine luck.
The Crocuses
They heard the South wind sighing
A murmur of the rain;
And they knew that Earth was longing
To see them all again.
While the snow-drops still were sleeping
Beneath the silent sod;
They felt their new life pulsing
Within the dark, cold clod.
Not a daffodil nor daisy
Had dared to raise its head;
Not a fairhaired dandelion
Peeped timid from its bed;
Though a tremor of the winter
Did shivering through them run;
Yet they lifted up their foreheads
To greet the vernal sun.
And the sunbeams gave them welcome,
As did the morning air—
And scattered o’er their simple robes
Rich tints of beauty rare.
Soon a host of lovely flowers
From vales and woodland burst;
But in all that fair procession
The crocuses were first.
First to weave for Earth a chaplet
To crown her dear old head;
And to beauty the pathway
Where winter still did tread.
And their loved and white haired mother
Smiled sweetly ’neath the touch,
When she knew her faithful children
Were loving her so much.
Overview Short Summary
The crocuses sense spring before other flowers and rise through the cold earth. Their early color becomes a crown for the landscape while winter is still leaving.
Literary Technique Personification
The crocuses hear, feel, lift their foreheads, and show love to Earth as if they were faithful children. Earth becomes an elderly mother comforted by their return.
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