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.
Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" states an essential lesson that the true American Character must learn when chasing an ideal. The poem epitomizes the necessity to refrain from longing for the past, as so many American Characters do when striving for a dream. Using the metaphor of nature, Frost writes, "Her early leaf's a flower/But only so an hour." A dream is only a dream when it is still in reach; once it is unattainable, one is simply wanting what he or she cannot have by longing for this dream that only exists in the past. Frost alludes to the Garden of Even, writing it "sank to grief;" even this perfect world that God created for the Earth's first two human beings cannot remain ideal. He concludes with the line, "Nothing gold can stay," for no ideal stays perfect forever, and no dream is forever attainable. The American Character needs to learn this lesson and let go of the past in order to grow and develop as a person.
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.
Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" states an essential lesson that the true American Character must learn when chasing an ideal. The poem epitomizes the necessity to refrain from longing for the past, as so many American Characters do when striving for a dream. Using the metaphor of nature, Frost writes, "Her early leaf's a flower/But only so an hour." A dream is only a dream when it is still in reach; once it is unattainable, one is simply wanting what he or she cannot have by longing for this dream that only exists in the past. Frost alludes to the Garden of Even, writing it "sank to grief;" even this perfect world that God created for the Earth's first two human beings cannot remain ideal. He concludes with the line, "Nothing gold can stay," for no ideal stays perfect forever, and no dream is forever attainable. The American Character needs to learn this lesson and let go of the past in order to grow and develop as a person.