Nothing Gold Can Stay-R. 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.
In
Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" the author speaks of how in nature
the early greens of spring are frail colors to keep. While the leaves blossom
into flowers but cease to stay beautiful forever. By the time night falls
Frost states that the leaves have matured and soon, like all good things fade
quickly, fall will whisk away the loveliness of spring, proving that nothing
gold can stay.
In
"Nothing Gold Can Stay" Robert Frost uses imagery and metaphors to let the
picture unfold in the viewers mind. As the poem itself blossoms you can visualize
the 'first green' leaves of the season cast in gold. Gold seemingly is always
associated with Heaven and the innocence beginning the world held. This metaphor
and imagery sets you at ease for the world you picture, beautiful and innocent
in being is in thus perfect for nothing has marred it yet. As the poem lengthens
and rolls out into a seasonal timeline leaves are repeatedly used, a constant
metaphor even. Shifting from a newly bade froth to a glorious flower, then
that frail beauty metamorphose into another passing phase of leaves, exhausting
throughout the poem until the presumed death of fall. Frost as well uses personification
to bring the Garden of Eden to life, with the phrase "Eden sank to grief."
Grief, a word associated with humankind is granted to a garden, this personification
helps you to imagine a lush green bountiful land sinking into depression and
seeming to wilt away, thus no only being an example of personification but
of imagery as well. As Frost states "So dawn goes down to day" we are once
more locked away in the hushing darkness, nothing gold can stay.
This poem was interpreted as being a human in form. Nature took the role as the human, the different phrases representing the times in this person's life when innocence was short lived and the gold being but a plating, wearing away to reveal the true bronze beneath. This short-lived happiness though cherished can never last as the person goes on in life. Things must change, people will make mistakes, and mistakes will stripe humanity of innocence. This piece filled me with a curiosity, wondering if people try to fool life and live in a world of innocence. A perfect world for they can savor the brilliance of that golden age of innocence, and yet, I know nothing gold can stay.