“Nothing Gold Can Stay” Questions, Connections, and Insights for Poetry Analysis

“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.

Remember the sunset symbol? Here is a parallel symbol.

  1. The rhyme scheme indicates ______.
  2. What is the first thing the poet wants you to see? ______
  3. In the first line, there’s something weird. It looks like the poet is comparing two different ______. What’s the deal?
  4. Which word conjures a number of strong images? What are they? ______

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  1. “Nature’s first green” occurs______.
  2. Line 2 has some alliteration in it—not hard alliteration, either. The ‘h’ sound makes the sound of a ______, and is as fleeting as one.
  3. It also has the word hue which not everyone knows. A hue is a color or a shade. A homophone for hue is ______, which can mean______. Coincidence? ______
  4. Line 3—what word connects with a word in one of the previous 2 lines? ______
  5. Line 3—picture a bud. The flower part looks like it’s ______in leaves before it blossoms.
  6. Line 4—connects to line ______– emphasizing the fleeting nature of ______.
  7. Lines 5, 6, and 7—all have words relating to what direction or what kind of motion? ______List the words that reflect the same kind of direction or motion______
  1. Line 5—Why does leaf subside to leaf? Why do the leaves fall? ______
  2. Connect the death implied in line 5 with a word in line 6. ______
  3. Look at the allusion of Eden in line 5. Eden is the biblical paradise in which the first man and woman thrived…until they didn’t. In the story in Genesis recounting God’s creation, He places the first man and woman in this beautiful paradise with only one rule: Don’t eat from that one tree over there. There were plenty of trees they could eat from, but that one was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of course, they tried the fruit, thus disobeying the only rule God gave them, dooming mankind to all kinds of awful stuff. Sin has now entered paradise, and God kicks the two out of the Garden of Eden. This is referred to as The Fall of Man. (There’s that “fall” again!)
  4. Line 7—I never understood this one when I looked at the line in a certain way. I always associated “dawn” with upward motion because the sun rises. As in the word “gold,” I had to look at the line in a different way. What about conflict? What are the 2 things in conflict in line 7? ______and ______. Which one wins and which one “goes down?” ______
  5. Why/how does ______win this conflict? ______
  6. Look at the 2 transitions “So” in lines 6 & 7. I never got that either when I assumed they both meant the same thing. What if they don’t? The first “So” implies ______whilethe second one implies ______.
  7. What’s the lesson? Look at the last line. It all adds up to this. ______
  8. Is the poem hopeless? Go back to your imagery.______
  9. Why did the author choose this poem in particular for this novel in particular?______