Nothing Gold Can Stay Poem Analysis

Nothing Gold Can Stay

By Robert Frost

What 3 words stand out to you?

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Prediction: Based on this word cloud, what do you think this poem will be about?

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Open Ended

"Nature's first green is gold" is a metaphor.

What is "nature's first green"?

What does it mean for someting to "be gold"?

Nature's first green is gold.

• Setting of poem = nature

• Nature's first green = spring, new life

• is gold = precious, special

Multiple Choice

Her hardest hue to hold.

Personification is giving human qualities or traits to non-human things. What is being personified here?

• Colors

• Flowers

• Mother Nature

• Sunrise

Her hardest hue to hold.

• The first color we see in spring doesn't stick around for very long.

• This is "her hardest hue to hold"

• "Her" = Mother Nature

Her early leaf's a flower;

• Spring = flowering trees and bushes

• Turn to green leaves in summer

• More metaphor - Mother Nature's first leaf is actually a flower!

Open Ended

Nature's first green is gold.

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

What do you think Robert Frost is saying in stanza 1?

Nature's first green is gold.

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

• Flower = symbol of youth; innocence

• Only lasts for a short time before it changes and matures

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

• Subsides = sank down, settled

• Flower > the actual leaf

So Eden sank to grief;

• Allusion = passing reference to someone or something

• Nature is being compared to the Garden of Eden (biblical reference)

• Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden when they sank or fell from God's grace.

So dawn goes down to day.

• Dawn turns into day

• The beauty of day is nothing compared to the golden beauty of the first light of dawn.

Nothing gold can stay.

• Early spring leaves and flowers, Garden of Eden and dawn are all gold.

• None of them can stay for very long in this world.

Open Ended

Do you agree with Robert Frost that nothing gold can stay?

Open Ended

Why is this poem significant (important) to the novel?

How does it relate to what we have read so far?