Nature's First Green Is Gold

I can't sleep this evening. Classes start again tomorrow and I need to be sleeping but my mind had latched on to an old Robert Frost poem and won't let go.

Robert Frost first published the short poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" in the 1923 Yale Review. Later that year it was included in Frost's collection tilted New Hampshire, which also included "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." The collection was also awarded the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

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 remember reading this poem years ago while living in DC and enjoying the tone and rhythm. It just flows off the tongue. The rhyming pattern is as obvious as the alliterations are subtle. The words of the poem meander through your mind like a fresh bubbling brook. Skipping from word to word and line to line but never settling. I didn't put much thought into the meaning of the poem at the time. I just enjoyed it.

Fast forward a few years and in an American Literature class my professor, Rob Carney, asked us to memorize and recite two poems for the class. I chose this poem mostly because I knew that it would be an easy one to memorize.

At the time, the only interpretation I focused on was the same classic interpretation that S.E. Hinton uses as a theme to his popular novel The Outsiders. It has been to many years since I have read Hinton's novel or watched the movie that was adapted from it, yet I do know that one of the themes had to do with the need to stay gold or golden. Meaning to try to stay innocent or to achieve the perfection of the innocent.

Frost's use of the word gold in line one is substituted in line six with the word Eden. In Christian religions Eden refers to the garden of perfection created by God and then inhabited by an innocent Adam and Eve. If we follow this line of thinking then, the gold which Frost is referring to is the perfection of the innocent unmarred by worldly cares, needs, or even realities. In Eden, there were no thorns to prick the finger, or weeds to choke the flowers. It wasn't until Adam and Eve were forced out of Eden that they learned sorrow and the work of tilling the land for their harvest. The reference that "Eden sank to grief" is this loss of innocence that Adam and Eve suffered as they were cast out of the Garden.

Frost also uses quite a few words to remind us that time is not infinite. Words such as first, early, hold, only, hour, and even dawn, reinforce the poems argument that the initial innocence of our lives is fleeting. The beauty of childhood lasts but a short time before we are forced to accept the reality of the world that surrounds us.

As I was learning about this poem for my lit class I was so focused on the "grief" that comes from the loss of the gold that I didn't take the time to delve any deeper into the possible implications. But tonight as I lie in bed I again recognized not only the need we have for change but also the joy that can be found in such changes.

Frost reminds us that Nature's first steps are gold and flowers. Spring is often connected with the beauty of renewed innocence and life. The short life span of the cherry blossoms and lilacs illustrate the fleetingness of Frost's poem. Yet the brevity of spring passes into the beauty of a hot summer day. Summer fades to the crunch of the autumn leaves which then flow to the glitter of a frosty morning. Just because the beauty of the first green has passed doesn't mean beauty can't be found in the life that follows.

In yet another portion of the poem, Frost refers to the dawn going down. We all know that the dawn is about the rising of the sun. Frost is using the alliteration to draw attention to the other 'D' words in the line (dawn and day) while implying the passage of time and the end of the dawn. While the dawn is very beautiful, I am rarely awake for it. The day is where my life happens. Work, and school, friends and family, fill my days and evenings not my dawn. The joys and laughter the pain and sorrow aren't to be found in the first glittering moments of my dawn. They are the product of all of my experiences throughout the rest of my day.

As line eight has been reverberating through my mind, it has been reminding me of a quote from L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. Frost states "So dawn goes down today" to which I hear Anne reply "Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it." Reference to dawn going down, allows one to think of the setting of the sun. With the passing of one day, or season, or experience, we are offered the opportunity to have others. Part of the joy found in life is taking a wrong turn and discovering a whole new world along the back roads. If the sun were never to set, or the dawn turn into day, how would we ever get the chance to experience life to it's fullest.

So, thank you Mr. Frost. Yes, the dawn of my life has passed and I am headed into the heat of the day. And while the first blush of youth has worn away, I am lucky to enjoy the life I lead as each experience leads me to the other opportunities.

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.