poem from the outsiders nothing gold can stay

When I first read the poem, I never imagined it would have such an effect on me. The words and sounds form a cohesive work, instead of a choppy, peppery, scattered slew of letters. Additionally, the couplet rhyming scheme and similar syllable count in each line give the poem a watery flow. What I love the most about this poem is its number of powerful words. Each word in the poem has a purpose and together forms a visual that any reader can see. I imagined a violet twilight turn into blackness, ending the dawn. I imagined a sunshine-yellow daffodil (“Nature’s first green is gold”) bloom, then wilt.

His imagery, though confined to just eight lines and forty words, allows any reader to see spring. Through minimal words, Frost still forms a beautiful scene. He still manages to make the poem optimistic. Eventually, a golden flower must join the other flowers on the ground, when “dawn goes down to day.” While it is sad that every good thing can’t last forever, Frost uses dawn and day instead of day and night to show that there are hopes for the future. Though there are a number of possible readings for this line, it is easily comparable to children in their innocent years: an individual is guiltless and pure early on, which is the “gold” of life, yet innocence is something that stays “only so an hour.”Īfter all, as Frost points out, everything ends. With the second line (“Her hardest hue to hold”), Frost also personifies nature as someone struggling to hold onto her prettiest hues in her early hours. It combines powerful figurative language and a deeper meaning, crafts beautiful imagery, and creates a fluid sound pattern.įirst, anyone who likes the outdoors and outdoor writing will enjoy “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” Every line of the poem relates to some sort of item in nature: Frost touches on the Garden of Eden, the sky, and the earth. It is a quick poem that says so much in so little. To this day, I have every word of the poem memorized.

I first came across Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” two-and-a half years ago, nestled in a copy of S.E. Henry Holt: New York, 2002 originally published in 1923. ' Nothing Gold Can Stay' by Robert Frost, from THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST: THE COLLECTED POEMS, COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED, edited by Edward Connery Lathem, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2002.

Poem from the outsiders nothing gold can stay