Can someone help me analyze this poem called Nothing Gold can stay?
Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leave’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.
The key to understanding this is in the last line: "Nothing gold can stay."
What do you think the poet means by "gold" here?
What do you think the poet means by "stay"?
What I think it means is everything that starts or born will never last long and will always end.
Exactly. =)
But what does lines 1-3 mean? I have to define every line in the poem.
The final line is the summing up -- the overall meaning -- which you know.
Each other line gives an example of the truth of that last line. Be sure you're clear on what the poet means by "gold" here. It's certainly not the metal we make rings and other things out of, right?
I know that "gold" means everything that is important to you and us.
Exactly -- everything that's worth anything.
I have trees in my front and back yards that are just now beginning to leaf out, after losing all of last year's leaves in fall '17. They are so beautiful when they first leaf out -- very light green in various shades. Then as the spring and summer go on, their shades of green change, usually getting darker green. And then in the fall, they'll all turn brown, yellow, and red before they drop off the trees. All this is what my first thoughts were when I read those first two lines.
How will you analyze these lines?