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Robert FrostA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Robert Frost quite frequently wrote about nature, usually using the northeastern part of the United States, New England, as his landscape. In “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” Frost describes a specific landscape but also works within a long tradition among poets to comment on the perpetual changing of nature. This idea of continual change, also known as mutability, was a favored topic of Romantic poets like William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). Poems with this theme generally center on the idea of nature’s transience (nothing lasts forever), the inevitability of change, and the poignancy of the passage of time. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” aligns with all these hallmarks, though Frost uses a succinct form to clarify nature’s progress.
From the beginning, Frost emphasizes the fleeting nature of “gold” (Line 1). The color—or the idea of something being gold and therefore precious—is the “hardest hue to hold” (Line 2). The flowering of this leaf happens “only so an hour” (Line 4). This indicates the painful futility of trying to hold on to that which is transitory. This is evidenced by the progression of imagery tied to the passage of seasons. Nature, personified, moves from her “first green” (Line 1) to the brief “flower” (Line 3); then, her “leaf subsides to leaf” (Line 5), until “dawn goes down to day” (Line 7). These descriptions correlate with spring, summer, fall and winter and show a natural, unstoppable cycle. Since poems centering on mutability traditionally have a plaintive tone, Frost also alludes to Eden, which he explains “sank to grief” (Line 6), highlighting the despair of forever losing an ever-blooming paradise. The final line, “Nothing gold can stay” (Line 8), offers a philosophical reflection on nature and human life and because Frost also opted to use this line as the title of the poem, should be read as the central message.
Although “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” is clearly about the way nature physically changes seasons, Frost’s imagery also metaphorically shows human growth from child to adult. “Nature” (Line 1) signifies the nature of mankind. An innocent person is considered “green” (Line 1) and this time in one’s life is considered golden. Children aren’t just little adults, as they were prior to the 1800s, but inhabit a special time and landscape. The time in this world is brief and several philosophies state that children begin to become attuned to deeper issues when they reach the age of seven, traditionally called the “age of reason.” When the child reaches the developmental age of understanding, the flowering of adolescence is ushered in. At 48 and well-acquainted with hardship and the death of beloved friends and his own children, Frost must have seen his young adulthood as the distant past. The period of being “a flower” (Line 3) lasts “only so an hour” (Line 4) and due to its fleeting state, must be relished. “Then leaf subsides to leaf” (Line 5) indicates the quick succession of life’s events. There’s a clear idea that the early joyful paradise before time passes is left behind when Frost notes “Eden sank to grief” (Line 6). This is, he tells the reader, inevitable. The valued things and experiences of youth fade over time but this, Frost, suggests, is as common as “dawn goes down to day” (Line 7). Sunrise is inevitably followed by sunset. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” emphasizes that anything experientially treasured cannot last forever, especially the innocence of childhood.
The entirety of “Nothing Gold Can Stay” pivots on the use of the biblical allusion to Eden. The first five lines can be read as either an objective description of nature’s blossoming and eventual decay or as the loss of youth’s innocence. However, Frost’s mention of the biblical Garden— “So Eden sank to grief” (Line 6)—shifts the poem’s focus. In the creation story in the Bible’s book of Genesis to which Frost alludes, Adam and Eve enjoy bliss in paradise. However, eager to learn more, they are seduced by the serpent of temptation to taste the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge. In response, God casts the couple from Eden to curtail any further breaking of prohibitions—particularly eating from the tree of life (or immortality). Adam and Eve weep in sorrow and shame as they are banished, newly aware of their capacity for good and evil. By repeating the word “so” suggests that this falling from grace is as inevitable as the passage of time: “Then leaf subsides to leaf. / So Eden sank to grief, / So dawn goes down to day” (Line 5-7). The word “so” creates a causal effect, implying that knowledge or experience gained leads to grief and descent. The precious “first green” (Line 1) is now lost. Frost layers in the subtext of betrayal. Adam and Eve’s longing for the fruit compelled them to betray God. Frost’s imagery shows how love, the “first green” (Line 1), has an initial period of goodwill or pure intention—its “gold” (Line 1)—but this phase exists for “only […] an hour” (Line 4). Eventually, experience shades all that is “a flower” (Line 3), and knowledge or temptation creeps into a place where fidelity used to live. Purity becomes tainted and “nothing gold can stay” (Line 8). Frost suggests that holding anyone to a particular standard of perfection is asking for failure.
By Robert Frost