.
The first line, because Nature is given a woman-like quality, could have more than just a meaning about springtime. "Nature's first green is gold" could also mean that Mother Nature's initial creation was something precious, rare, and meaningful. Women are taught, growing up, that they contain something precious, something out of the ordinary. They are also taught to hold onto that innocence, that part of them that is special for as long as they can. Instead of looking at the term gold in the sense of a color, the reader could infer the connotation of gold, which is something precious, something worth a lot. And because of that, since "nothing gold can stay", the worth is hard to hold on to.
In addition, Frost also uses paradox to show the fleeting worth of something precious. By saying "Her early leaf's a flower" (4), the reader could be puzzled by how a leaf could be a flower. In going back to the ambiguity of the first line, Frost uses this language to show the distinction of something ordinary and something exotic. The use of Nature as a woman could also allude to her 'flower' being the precious part of her body that she has to hold onto. What Nature grew, actually bloomed into something out of the ordinary, just like when females grow up, the essence of their 'flower' becomes a thing sought after. The following lines, however, suggests how this bloom was also temporary. Frost uses another paradox by saying "but only so an hour/ then leaf subsides to leaf'" (4-5). The reader may think, how can a leaf sink into being itself again? Line five shows how the once precious and out of the ordinary leaf loses intensity, or worth, and becomes less than special. Leaf subsiding to leaf is indicative of something rare (the flower) losing what made it rare in the first place. Frost uses these lines to reinforce the point that perfection has an inevitable expiration.
