by Neil Deo

Created on: July 17, 2008   Last Updated: August 23, 2009

Robert Frost, the New England poet, was possibly th first to speak at any president's inauguration. Despite having won many accolades during his lifetime, Frost's most memorable one was having been invited to read his poetry at our tragically short Presidency of John F. Kennedy.

In 1923, Frost's NEW HAMPSHIRE (poetry collection) won a Pulitzer prize, and he then went on to win three more - thus far, an unmatched feat! The poem, NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY, remains one of the most tantalizing in the 1923 collection.

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.

This is one of the shortest Frost poems and the only one to have been written, not in pentameter or tetrameter, but trimeter. Trimeter consists of six-syllable lines, with three stressed or accented syllables. The rhyme scheme appears strict, and the end-rhymes yield the following: aabbccdd. Additionally, Frost used a common poetic device, alliteration, in almost half the total of eight lines. These are:

G reen is G old
H er H ardest H ue to H old ;
So D awn goes D own to D ay .

For a stylistically traditional poem, NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY, is far from traditional in its message. Put another way, Frost might - with this poem's various versions, including a title "Nothing Golden Stays" - have chosen to leave his real message or messages ambivalent. He allowed readers to make the poem meaningful to their own lives, values and ethics. And readers have done so. This is why some see the poem as sad and pessimistic, while others go the the other extreme and finds true optimism for human beings in these eight lines. Ans there are many views in between.

It begins as a nature poem and, like other works by Frost, this poem reveals his close observation of nature and his physical environment.

"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold."

- seems clear enough about birch and other trees in New England during spring. The first yellow or golden turn of the buds are fleeting, or "hard ... to hold." This quick transition from welcome spring to hotter days may also be conveyed or reiterated by the next two lines,

"Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour."

It is the next two lines, namely L5 and L6 of the poem,

"Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,"

that has caused the most controversy. What is Frost including

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