NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY by ROBERT FROST! (meaning)?

Question

what does each line mean?

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.
♥Roberta♫

Answer 1

Green at its purest
Green will fade
A beautiful flower
fades in a hour
leaf is just a leaf
Eadn cry's
With dawn brings day
Nothing pure can stay!

Answer 2

First green is gold,---Things are new
The hardest hue to hold---Gold is Innocence
Early leaf's a flower,---First teachings a gift
But only for an hour---Coming of age.
Leaf subsides to leaf, ---As good subsides to evil
Eden sank in grief---Paradise is stricken
Dawn goes down to day,---With every sunset
Nothing gold can stay---Innocence is lost

Answer 3

Many of Frost's poems run along the same morbid lines, analyzing death and life in a symbiotic relation ship. To explicate this one, use the first line as a compass: a tree does not start off as a tree, but a seed, a man as a child, a child as an infant, an infant as fetus, etc. You get the point: things change and always will.

That leads logically into the second line: the infant gold is young, and will grow and change. The leaf is beautiful in its youth ("a flower"), but the moment is evanescent and fades ("only so an hour").

"Leaf subsides to leaf" reinforces the theme of growing an change, but one word sets the tone for the closing of the poem: "subsides". This word generates images of acquiesence, resignation and languishing; and as all things in nature grow from its golden stage of infancy to its adult green, it will eventually slide into death; but keep in mind, that this poem doesn't take the analogy this far. In fact, it seems as though Frost is suggesting that the adult life of nature is in a sense, the death of childhood (and in poetry, anything discussing change usually means it has something to do with death, the greates of changes).

"So Eden sank to grief": it's an odd line in this poem and stands out because it's the only one that isn't about nature; rather, it's about spirituality. If Eden is heaven and heaven sinks to grief, then that must be the end result of all life: death and grief. Now we have brought this poem, once about nature, to purely human terms: Eden is the place where, in the Bible, man sprouted from his infantile "gold".

The second to last line "So dawn goes down to day" is important in that it stops the flow of time at "day". The end of the beginning, as it were: the death of childhood and the birth of adulthood are one and the same, just as dawn changes to day in the natural flow of time.

The ending line of this poem provides its theme: "nothing gold (remember that this means youth/birth/beginning) can stay". Thus, anything in nature that begins will grow, and change and that is the unyielding way of things.

As corny as it sounds, if you watch the episode of The Simpsons -- the one where Bart feels that he's growing up and begins a T-shirt business with the help of some wierd gag-shop proprietor (I think it starts with Bart losing is last baby tooth and ends with Homer building a thermal-nuclear device), this poem is directly quoted by the Sea Captain as Bart sends his childhood toys out to see in a Viking-like raft which he torches with a flaming arrow.

Answer 4

1.spring
2.to cultivate the rewards
3.buds
4.short time
5.leafs(not the hockey team)
6.fall time,leaf falls
7.End of season,end of days
8.everything no matter the beauty dies.
9.A hot name.

Answer 5

everything comes in beautiful but cant always stay beautiful just like anything else life will go on and things will fade and die out

Answer 6

it means different things to everybody. Question is, what does it mean to you?

PS.: I am really poetic too!

Answer 7

ohhhh ponyboy where for art thou

Answer 8

Are you retarded?
It means everything gets old and dies. The gold is innocence at birth.

Answer 9

well i can tell that the meaning of the whole song is that nothing expensive if you know wat i mean will last as long as stuff like true love.