Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay

An Interpretation of Robert Frost’s
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

This poem by Robert Frost, like so many of his other works, uses nature as its subject. It makes good use of many literary elements like alliteration, paradox, metaphor, overstatement, and a couplet rhyme scheme. Though it is only a short, eight-line lyric poem, it carries a deep meaning. Frost describes the “subsiding” of nature’s beauty, but through deeper analysis we find that the poem encourages us to enjoy all things “gold,” and look ahead to the coming of brighter and fuller life.
The poem begins with a literary paradox in line one, and it’s meaning can be made clear through both literal and metaphorical interpretation. “Nature’s first green is gold,” in a more literal sense because the pale green leaves and buds of early spring are actually a gold color, as in that of the birch tree that Frost so admired (Ferguson). In terms of the metaphor the beauty of nature’s first growth...