"Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost

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.

     I absolutely love this poem. When I learned that we were going to have to memorize a poem, I immediately knew what poem I was going to memorize. I first read "Nothing Gold Can Stay" when I read The Outsiders, a coming-of-age novel by S.E. Hinton. I remembered certain lines of the poem, but it challenged me in that I didn't know what it exactly meant or how it related to me. As I've gotten older I have begun to understand what Frost is saying. However, I wonder if he is challenging life, ultimately saying that "you don't know what you have until it's gone." Life is fleeting, brief. Beautiful things come and go, but they never stay. To simply put it, he is telling readers to enjoy the moment and the little things, because the most wonderful moments come to an end. 

     "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is an eight line poem, and while it may seem short, it is hidden with many complexities. This poem is written in blank verse, with a rhyme scheme (aabbccdd) that makes it sound a bit more lighthearted. The rhythm of the poem suggests the speaker's tone which ultimately is nostalgic, sentimental, and regretful. Such nostalgia is present through the metaphors of nature that Frost uses to allude to a bigger theme.

     The lines "Her early leaf's a flower / But only so an hour" resonates with me because I think the speaker is expressing that something beautiful is temporary.  These lines express that a flower has grown from a seed, to bud, into a beautiful blossom, but it's beauty is so short. When the flower dies, "Eden sank to grief." In this line Frost is alluding to the Garden of Eden, the place where life is born, and as it says in the bible, it is a place where God would allow people to live forever. "Eden sank to grief," because the flower died; it wasn't immortal. The flowers are personified in a way that is often overlooked. They symbolize the fragile nature of life, how  the things most elegant, never stay. 

   The blossoms are not the only images in the poem that suggest the view that life is fleeting. Frost uses the color gold to describe the nature. Gold is something precious, and in relation to nature, something that last only a short while. Frost describes this rarity when he writes, "So dawn goes down to day. / Nothing gold can stay." Yes, he is describing a sunset, but he is alluding to time and life. A sunset lasts for such a short time in the morning, until it is replaced by the blue sky. Nature itself is golden, it's beauty is fleeting, and one can miss it. This extraordinary, golden moment, will be gone before one can truly appreciate it. 

     In addition to the complexities of life and death, the shift in the poem may be overlooked by a cursory reader. I think the shift in the poem begins in the fourth line with the word "But." Until this point, the reader has imagined the growth of nature, and it's alluring capabilities. I think that this turn has significance in the poem because it rejects the beauty and simplistic descriptions that precede it in previous lines. 

     "Nothing Gold Can Stay" has had a profound affect on my life and I think it relates to this time in our lives. Since I am at a point in my life where change is ahead, I have become sentimental and nostalgic, longing for the days when life was easier, not as complex. I understand that life is changing, and new paths, schools, and futures are ahead of us. To me, I feel like it has gone too fast, as I remember the first time I stepped on campus at Harpeth Hall, just six years ago. Ultimately I think Frost is getting at the point that life that is fleeting and short-lived. The things that are most beautiful, last the shortest. The most precious moments are the most brief. Life is fragile, and no one immortal. Frost is telling the readers to stay gold. In the end, enjoy the little things because if you don't stop and look around, you may miss it.