Nothing Gold Can Stay

Imagism Poetry Project (music: Opus #7 by Dustin O'Halloran)

Recently, some of my NTUMC classmates were having a discussion
on a subject, which had something to do with "old" and "gold".

First, D.J. read a poem written by Robert Frost (1874 - 1963):

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.

It reminded him of an ancient Chinese poem by 李商隱:

樂游原

向晚意不適 ，驅車登古原。
夕陽無限好 ，只是近黃昏。

He noticed "夕陽無限好, 只是近黃昏" to be both superficial and deep
in it's meaning and sense. He saught opinions from the other
classmates.

W. replied and replaced "Nature's first green is gold" of Frost's poem with "Autumn’s last green is gold", stating: "We are all old, and thus
夕陽無限好, 只是近黃昏."

I thought "行到水窮處, 坐看雲起時" might be a more positive
expression.

Y.M., however, preferred "山窮水盡疑無路, 柳暗花明又一村".
He stated it was his favorite and it reflected his thought,(or,
I presume, his personal real life experience as well?)

Old and Gold, Old is Gold, but nothing gold can stay.

日出扶桑一點紅,光陰催攢白頭翁。
世間多少花花錦,回首江山萬物空。


Yeh Tze