“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

by Robert Frost

American poet

Written in 1923

“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Rhyme Scheme

Nature’s first green is gold. A

Her hardest hue to hold. A

Her early leaf’s a flower; B

But only so an hour. B

Then leaf subsides to leaf. C

So Eden sank to grief, C

So dawn goes down today. D

Nothing gold can stay. D

“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Line 1 & 2 AnalysisNature’s first green is gold.Her hardest hue to hold.

Analysis

Many times green is used to refer to something new.

New things (such as babies) are innocent.

Gold is used to show something is valuable or

precious.

New things are precious… innocence is gold.

Therefore, we can compare nature in this poem to

youth…cannot stay young/innocent forever.

“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Line 3 & 4 Analysis

Her early leaf’s a flower;But only so an hour.

Analysis

The leaf becomes a blossom, but only for a short

period of time.

Again, we can compare this to the middle of life,

it lasts for only a short amount of time.

“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Line 5 & 6Then leaf subsides to leaf.So Eden sank to grief,

Analysis

The leaves will overlap each other as they fall to

the ground.

Subsides- to sink of fall to the bottom, to become

quiet or less

Biblical reference to the Garden of Eden –

happiness became sadness, darkness and death.

We compare the leaf subsiding to growing old and

dying.

“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Line 7 & 8

So dawn goes down today.Nothing gold can stay.

Analysis

Basically, the poem states that even the gold of

dawn will become the gold of sunset- each day

must end.

Therefore, we can conclude that Frost believes

that everything must grow up, lose innocence

and die.