This gold is here to stay
January 12th 2009 15:24
"Nothing Gold Can Stay," by Robert 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.
I think this is one of my favorite poems of all time. It's such a short little poem, but in these lines he offers a beautiful critique not only on the beauty of nature, but on the nature of beauty in general.
Each line is six syllables long, except, technically, the third line, which is seven; but the syllables of the word "flower" can easily be muddled into one long syllable like the word "flour." And its rhyme partner, "hour," works perfectly with it. Also, the last line is only five syllables, which I think works well for the short but powerful ending to this short and powerful poem.
The whole poem is written in a perfect iambic, except for the first line, which begins with a trochee (NAture's), which I feel works well for the poem; it sort of gives it a kick-start. Also the last line is trochaic. Trochaic bookends, a coincidence? Maybe it is, but it was a coincidence that Frost probably saw upon finishing the poem and liked it, so decided to leave it that way. Who knows.
The rhyming couplets are well-done, to me, because the rhymes are natural and easy-sounding; no messed up syntax or nonsense rhymes just for the sake of rhyming. Also, the rhymed lines are closely related to each other, so it gives the poem a nice sort of grouping within the whole. I have seen a couple versions of this online that changes "to day" in the second to last line to "today," but I'm pretty sure "to day" is the way it was originally written. And it just makes more sense given the context of the poem.
I love the idea of transitory beauty, and how it only lasts for a short time in the beginning. I found it interesting that in this poem Frost doesn't say that anything is ugly or undesirable after the first beauty is gone; it just goes. He could have equated it as day fading to night, which a lot of other poets might have done, but that wouldn't have had the same effect, I think. In a lot of the poetry I've read, it seems that day fading to night signifies an end, or a fall from grace.
But Frost says "dawn goes down to day." I love that line! It almost implies, to me, that the perfect, delicate beauty of dawn is not and should not be the focal point, since day is usually thought of as the important part of life...the longest and full of the most energy. This is a hopeful little poem that celebrates life, even if it isn't always beautiful.
It even has a spiritual side, with the line "So Eden sank to grief". And with that line being right before "dawn goes down to day," this also implies to me that Eden's sinking into grief might not necessarily have been a terrible thing, but more like a thing that happened irrevocably, and now our day might not be as beautiful. But so what? It's still our day, and we're living in it, so we should make the most of it and think of it as day instead of night.
A lovely little poem with so much energy and a loud voice...just like we should be every day in this big world of ours.
Tomorrow I'll delve into some free verse again by talking about a little poem that I wrote just the other day. See you tomorrow!
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