This short poem is one of my favorites by Robert Frost. In just eight short lines, he captures the transience of beauty from a leaf to the Garden of Eden.
NOTHING 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.
~Robert Frost