Nothing Gold Can Stay

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 really liked this poem by Robert Frost.  I took it simply as nothing good ever lasts.  It's an easy one to relate to because there is often a time that is so much fun or perfect and you don't want it to change, but it does anyways.  Frost used the different seasons to portray this message of nothing good ever lasts.  In the first line, he says that before nature was green, it was gold.  In the second line he goes on to tell that the gold is the hardest one to keep, as if the gold is more sacred than the green.  Line three and four talks about Spring, but how it only lasts a little bit.  In line five, I took the "leaf subsides to leaf" as the leaves falling, and it changing to winter.  Line six makes a Biblical allusion to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived.  The next line makes a switch from a change in seasons to a change in the time of day.  I thought it was interesting he put "dawn goes down to day".  Perhaps he preferred dawn to day, so dawn was his "golden" thing he lost to day.  I think the last line sums up the poem perfectly and really emphasizes the meaning of it. 
  The poem is an octave with a rhyme scheme of AA BB CC DD.



Garden of Eden