Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,          Then leaf subsides to leaf.
Her hardest hue to hold.          So Eden sank to grief,
Her early leaf's a flower;          So dawn goes down to day.
But only so an hour.          Nothing gold can stay.
      -- Robert Frost

In a branch of a willow hid
Sings the evening Caty-did:
From the lofty locust bough
Feeding on a drop of dew,
In her suit of green array'd
Hear her singing in the shade
Caty-did, Caty-did, Caty-did!

While upon a leaf you tread,
Or repose your little head,
On your sheet of shadows laid,
All the day you nothing said:
Half the night your cheery tounge
Revell'd out its little song,
Nothing else but Caty-did.

From your lodgings on the leaf
Did you utter joy or grief-?
Did you only mean to say,
I have had my summer's day,
And am passing, soon, away
To the grave of Caty-did;-
Poor, unhappy Caty-did!

Excerpt from 'To A Caty-did' by Philip Freneau