[antiterra]

I think “Nothing Gold Can Stay” fits the mold. It’s a heartbreaking poem of beautiful construction and depth that is dismissed because it has been heavily cited by popular culture. It doesn’t help that what it has to say, at first glance, appears to be cut short by its title:

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.

Early versions of the poem show meandering sequential steps of revision that suddenly give way to a less intuitive flourish that anchors it.

This contains the best description of the revisions I have found online- https://poemshape.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/the-making-of-rob...