I've been reading a book called Through the Language Glass: Why The World Looks Different in Different Languages, by Guy Deutcher, which is about the balance of natural and cultural influences on language. The first half (which is as far as I've read so far) is about color, specifically the way human languages tend to develop color terminology is a predictable way, moving from black and white, then to red, then to green and/or yellow, and only lastly to blue. The primary thesis is that we humans come up with words for things we need to talk about. Since there is little in nature that is blue (besides the sky and sea, neither of which requires much discussion), it is generally one of the later words to develop in most languages. In any case, these two poems, which I found together in a high-school anthology of poetry, both concern color...
The Net
by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
I made you many and many a song,Yet never one told all you are --
It was as though a net of words
Were flung to catch a star;
It was as though a net of words
Were flung to catch a star;
It was as though I curved my hand
And dipped sea-water eagerly,
Only to find it lost the blue
Dark splendor of the sea.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost (1874–1963)
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.
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.
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