Nothing Gold Can Stay

Summary

Nothing Gold Can Stay is an eight-line lyric by Robert Frost, first printed in The Yale Review in October 1923 and collected the same autumn in the Grace Notes section of New Hampshire, the book that brought him his first Pulitzer Prize. Its title has become a proverb, and many students first meet it through S. E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders (1967), where a character recites it. The poem begins with an observation from a New England spring. Nature's first green is gold: the earliest buds and leaves of trees such as willows and maples often open in a yellow or golden tint before they darken. That first color is her hardest hue to hold. The early leaf is like a flower, but only for an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf, as the bright first growth settles into ordinary summer green. In the last three lines Frost widens the observation into a pattern for all of life. So Eden sank to grief: the first perfect world of Genesis gave way to sorrow. So dawn goes down to day: the gold of sunrise fades into common daylight. Then comes the conclusion that gives the poem its title, stated as flatly as a law of nature. Nothing gold can stay. The verse is tightly made. Each line has only three beats, the lines rhyme in couplets, and the alliteration of green, gold, hardest, hue, and hold makes the lines easy to remember. The word subsides suggests both sinking and settling, and the phrase goes down to day reverses the expected direction, because dawn usually rises. Readers in a classical Christian classroom can trace how Frost borrows the biblical story of the Fall to explain why beauty and innocence pass. They should also notice that the poem stops at loss. Scripture tells the same story of a lost garden but ends with a promise that all things will be made new.

Plot or Argument

• The first green is gold (lines 1-2)

  Spring's first leaves open in a golden tint, the color nature finds hardest to keep.

• The leaf that is a flower (lines 3-5)

  The early leaf is as lovely as a flower, but only for an hour, before leaf subsides to ordinary leaf.

• Eden, dawn, and the rule (lines 6-8)

  The pattern is extended to Eden sinking to grief and dawn going down to day, ending in the general law that nothing gold can stay.

Characters

• The speaker, Speaker

  An observer of a New England spring who turns a detail about leaves into a reflection on the Fall and the passing of beauty.

Lessons

• Look closely before you generalize

  Frost starts with a precise, checkable observation about the color of early leaves and only then draws a large conclusion. Good thinking moves the same way, from careful attention to particulars toward general truths.

  • What exactly has the speaker noticed about spring leaves?
  • Where in the poem does the observation turn into a general rule?
  • Can you think of something in nature that is most beautiful only at its beginning?

• The Fall explains the fading

  The line So Eden sank to grief places the whole poem inside the biblical story. The passing of golden things is not only a fact of seasons; the poem treats it as a sign of the loss in Genesis 3. Students can discuss how the Christian story both agrees with Frost and goes further.

  • Why do you think Frost mentions Eden in a poem about leaves and dawn?
  • What was lost in Genesis 3, according to the Bible?
  • Does the Bible end where this poem ends? Explain.

• Sound makes memory

  Short three-beat lines, rhymed couplets, and alliteration on g and h make this poem easy to learn by heart. Memorizing a whole poem lets students carry its argument and its music with them.

  • Which sounds repeat in the first two lines?
  • How do the short lines suit the poem's subject?
  • Why might a poem about things that do not last be written so that it does last in memory?

Context

Frost spent much of his life farming and observing the countryside of New Hampshire and Vermont, and his poems often begin from exact details of the seasons. In 1920 he moved to a farm in South Shaftsbury, Vermont, where much of New Hampshire was prepared, and the book's short Grace Notes gather some of his most compressed lyrics.

Composition

The poem appeared in The Yale Review in October 1923 and in New Hampshire (Henry Holt), published the same autumn. It is one of the shortest poems Frost collected, eight lines of iambic trimeter in rhymed couplets.

Reception

It became one of Frost's best-known short poems. S. E. Hinton quoted it in The Outsiders (1967), and the novel's phrase stay gold made the poem familiar to generations of middle school readers.

Comparisons

• God's Grandeur

  Hopkins also sees the freshness of the natural world under threat, but insists that the Holy Ghost broods over the bent world and renews it; Frost records the loss without the renewal.

• Paradise Lost

  Milton tells at epic length the story that Frost compresses into five words, So Eden sank to grief.

• Early Poems: A Boy's Will, North of Boston, Mountain Interval

  In The Oven Bird, from Mountain Interval, Frost asks what to make of a diminished thing; Nothing Gold Can Stay states the same theme more briefly.

• Fire and Ice

  A companion Grace Note from New Hampshire about endings: one poem imagines the world destroyed, the other watches beauty quietly fade.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The surprising claim in line 1 that nature's first green is gold.
• The word subsides in line 5 and the sense of sinking or settling it carries.
• The reference to Eden in line 6 and what it adds to a poem about leaves.
• The reversal in so dawn goes down to day, where you might expect dawn to rise.

Key terms and names

Hue

A color or shade; nature's hardest hue to hold is the gold of first leaves.

Subsides

Sinks down or settles to a lower level; the bright early leaf subsides into ordinary green.

Eden

The garden of Genesis 2-3 where Adam and Eve lived before the Fall.

Alliteration

Repetition of first consonant sounds, as in green, gold, hardest, hue, and hold.

Couplet

Two rhyming lines together; the poem is built of four rhymed couplets.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does the speaker mean by saying that nature's first green is gold?
2. Comprehension What three examples of fading does the poem give in lines 5-7?
3. Interpretation Why does Frost place Eden between a leaf and a dawn? What does the comparison suggest?
4. Interpretation Is the poem sad, peaceful, or both? Use specific words to support your answer.
5. Interpretation What might gold stand for in a human life?
6. Big Question If nothing gold can stay, how should we treat the good and beautiful things we have now?
7. Big Question Is there any good thing that can last forever? What would make it last?

Faith Connections

• Genesis 3 (Scripture)

  The story of the Fall, when Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden, is the background of Frost's line So Eden sank to grief.

• Isaiah 40:6-8 (Scripture)

  Isaiah agrees that the grass withereth and the flower fadeth, but adds that the word of our God shall stand for ever, a lasting gold the poem does not name.

• 1 Peter 1:3-4 (Scripture)

  Peter speaks of an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, a Christian answer to the claim that nothing gold can stay.

• Milton, Paradise Lost XII (Great Conversation)

  Milton ends his epic with Adam and Eve leaving Eden in sorrow but with the promise of redemption, the larger story behind Frost's compressed line.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The first gold of spring leaves fades quickly into green; Eden gave way to grief and dawn gives way to ordinary day; these are instances of one pattern; therefore nothing gold can stay.

Rhetorical device: Alliteration. Nature’s first green is gold, / Her hardest hue to hold, where g and h sounds bind the lines together.

Debate: Resolved: The poem's claim that nothing gold can stay is true of everything in this world.

Memory Work

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold

So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay

Writing Prompts

Essay: Argue whether Nothing Gold Can Stay is finally a hopeless poem or a poem that teaches us to value good things while we have them, using the Eden line as part of your evidence.

Comparison with God's Grandeur: Compare how Frost and Hopkins see the freshness of nature. Why does Hopkins find lasting renewal where Frost finds only fading?

Creative Prompts

• Poetry

  Write an eight-line poem in rhymed couplets that begins with an exact observation of something in nature and ends with a general truth, as Frost does.

• Essay

  Explain why Frost includes the line So Eden sank to grief, and how that line changes the meaning of the rest of the poem.

• Classroom

  Take the class outdoors or show photographs of spring buds, then read the poem aloud and have students list details Frost noticed that they can now see for themselves.

Further Reading

• New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes, Robert Frost

  The 1923 book, later awarded the Pulitzer Prize, in which all three of these short poems were collected.

• The Poetry of Robert Frost, Edward Connery Lathem (ed.)

  The standard collected edition; note that its punctuation sometimes differs from the first printings.

• The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton

  A 1967 novel in which the poem is recited and becomes a motif.

• Robert Frost: A Life, Jay Parini