I need to know how to do a interpretation on a robert frost poem, i need this for school really bad so pls.?

Question

need to know how to do a interpretation on a robert frost poem
the poem is called Nothing Gold Can Stay
and here is the poem

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.

how the heck your pose to do it and i need like example that would help too. thx

Answer 1

Innocence cannot be maintained forever. Changes are going to happen.

Answer 2

You do it by reading the words... not so much in the pattern of the poem but by letting the imagery put ideas into your head.
Here:
Nature's first green is gold = springtime or the purity of first bloom is rich (gold)
Her hardest hue to hold = it is most difficult for Nature (mother nature, the earth, whatever) to hold the purity, richness of spring etc.
Her early leafs a flower = first blooms, or buds are beautiful like flowers
But only so an hour = it's only going to last for a short time, this purity, richness, bloom
Then leaf subsides to leaf = leaf is possibly a metaphor for foundation or something less than the beauty of a flower (keep in mind, I'm just thinking and typing this out as I go... everyone will have a different interpretation, that's the point of the exercise)
So Eden sank to grief = so Eden, being once pure and rich, is sad because the beauty of the bloom only lasted for a short time
So dawn goes down today = end of the day, also symbolizes death or closure, or the end of the beauty
Nothing gold can stay = the beauty, purity, richness must end, as all good things must come to an end.

Just read the words and interpret them individually -- then read your interpretations together. I hope that that helps!

Answer 3

I would say that Frost is trying to convey through a nature metaphor that what we consider "perfect", or "the best", is not permanent. Just like a sunrise fades to the rest of the day (dawn goes down to day) or a new leaf is perfect and then becomes just like all the rest (leaf subsides to leaf), so does life. Eden = Garden of Eden. When creation was new it was perfect, there was no sadness or hardship, but after Eve ate the apple it was no longer paradise.

Hope that helps.

Answer 4

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/gold.htm

Perhaps no single poem more fully embodies the ambiguous balance between paradisiac good and the paradoxically more fruitful human good than "Nothing Gold Can Stay," a poem in which the metaphors of Eden and the Fall cohere with the idea of felix culpa. Six versions of the poem exist, the first sent to George R. Elliott in March, 1920, in three eight-line stanzas under the title "Nothing Golden Stays." In this version the poem lacked any Edenic metaphor, reading in the three last lines, "In autumn she achieves / A still more golden blaze / But nothing golden stays." In its first published version, however, in The Yale Review (October 1923), under the present title, the poet caught both the moment of transitory perfection and the sense that the Edenic ideal must give way to earthly dying beauty.

For more simple intrepretations:
http://www.eliteskills.com/c/13186

Answer 5

Its saying how nothing can stay young and it all has to grow and change and must come to an end. the gold is how its innocent and new and beautiful and rich and 'only so an hour' is how how the flower grows and the 'leaf subsides to leaf' is how generations must go on and the circle of life starts over.'nothing gold can stay' is how nothing stays young,nothing lasts forever.

Answer 6

This poem is about innocense and how we only stay innocent for so long. "Nothing Gold Can Stay" would then refer to the fact that no mortal person can retain their innocense. Frost is a very romantic poet in that he refers it all back to nature.

Answer 7

this is either a naturist landscapist thing or talking about life...
he's saying that nature's first produce is precious & beautiful (gold) & it's "her hardest hue to hold" because it's beautiful for a relatively short period of time

i think he's describing a day & saying that his favourite part of the day is enjoying the landscape inthe morning...

sorry i didn't feel like formalising my writing more... will this do?

Answer 8

It's about change and the passing of youth.

And the inevitability of old age and death.

Answer 9

Try this site, maybe it will help
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/gold.htm