In Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” the “purple-stained mouth” symbolizes intoxication and mortality; In Plath’s “Tulips,” red flowers symbolize oppressive vitality against the speaker’s desire for white emptiness; In Hughes’ “Harlem,” the “raisin in the sun” uses brown decay to symbolize deferred Black dreams; In Dickinson’s “There’s a certain Slant of light,” winter light’s “heavenly hurt” symbolizes spiritual despair through pale imagery; In Heaney’s “Blackberry-Picking,” “glossy purple” berries symbolize childhood hope, while their rot symbolizes disillusionment; In Neruda’s “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market,” silver scales evoke both beauty and the violence of capture.