Poem Analysis – Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

        Writing becomes one of the most essential aspects of our life. As humans, we write almost every day whether to express ourselves, persuade, or just simply to inform. Thus, in some ways, everyone is a writer. And we surely have done more than just those things in our daily lives. It can be lists, agendas, captions, emails, and instant messages as the most common writing. In the case of those whose life involves and requires writing every day like students, it’s different. Students need to write every day, whether to write an essay, article, and even thesis. By getting used to writing daily, you will sharpen your writing skills, vocabulary, and the flow of your writing. It might also make you communicate more concisely. Speaking of the writing benefits, poetry is another way to help enhance them. It will give you a deeper understanding of the language and allows you to see your writing differently. However, write poetry may seem too challenging at first, so preparation is a better option. We can start analyzing it first so that we can understand it. Since poetry is associated with literature where it means a written language, it helps us to explore creativity in language use. Therefore, poetry has something to do with stylistics as it is assigned to language. In poetry, sound patterning plays a pivotal role and in literary discourse in general. That’s why core features like rhythm and metre, have an important bearing on the structure and the interpretation of poetry. When we hear someone reading a poem aloud, an unusual communicative situation arises, and that’s where metre works. The spoken strong and weak syllables of words whenever a person reads this type of text would easily recognize by most people. Therefore, metre plays a pivotal criterion in shaping a single complete poem. However, not formed in random strong and weak syllables but, conversely, in an organized pattern of strong and weak syllables. 

        Furthermore, poetry also has rhythm, which is created by the patterns of repeated sounds in such a way that the alternation between accented syllables and weak syllables is repeated. That repetition is what makes rhythm. Rhythm is therefore a patterned movement of pulses in time which is defined both by periodicity and repetition. Now in metrics (a technique for describing rhythm in poetry), the foot is the basic unit of analysis and it refers to the span of stressed an unstressed syllable that forms a rhythmical pattern. Different kinds of metrical feet can be determined according to the number of, and ordering of, their constituent stressed and unstressed syllables. Each line of poetry, therefore, has a certain number of poetic feet. The five most common metrical patterns, or meters, in poetry, are iambic, anapestic, trochaic, spondaic, and dactylic. From those metrical patterns, one that shares the most common one is the iambic foot, which has two syllables. The first is less heavily stressed than the second, and we can use a ‘de-dum’ pattern to look more formal typology.

        Now, let us analyze a poem entitled “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by a well-known American poet named Robert Frost. As we can see, this is a short poem that consists only of eight lines long. The stanzaic form is composed of a group of two lines each, which means there are four groups in total. This two-line stanza is also known as a couplet because it is composed of two lines that rhyme. The rhyme scheme itself is can be said simply in which people can recognize easily by just read them at first sight. The rhymes taking at the end of each line in couplets and following a pattern of AABBCCDD. Furthermore, let’s begin to analyze the poem line by line so that we can understand what Frost tries to convey to the readers. Line 1 reads, “Nature’s first green is gold,” where it begins with a simple declaration. It can be assumed that the first line refers to spring season because, after a long winter, spring will eventually replace the winter as it’s like a long waited for the transition to a better place to live. This is definitely something to look forward to every living thing such as flowers, animals, and even humans can finally enjoy the perfect, ideal temperatures of a wonderful season. Therefore, the arrival of spring can be equalized as valuable as gold. Instead of showing the characteristics of iambic trimeter as the other lines do, the first line is breaking the rule of the traditional one. Here, the words “nature’s, first green,” and “is gold” are the irregular ones. Because it’s quite uncommon to have three different poetic feet in a single line.

        “Nature’s” is trochaic foot because a stressed syllable indicated in bolded alphabets is followed by an unstressed syllable indicated in light alphabets. Then, “first green” is spondaic foot because both of the words are stressed syllables. Lastly, “is gold” is iambic foot because an unstressed syllable indicated in light alphabets, is followed by stressed syllable indicated in bolded alphabets. And the metrical line is somewhat uncommon as well because the numbers of stressed syllables are four which why it’s called tetrameter but in an irregular structure. Overall, this line consisted of trochaic, spondaic, iambic, and irregular tetrameter which breaks the rule from the traditional poetic foot and metrical line in single line. The second line is still discussed in spring. “Her” refers to nature which seems the personification of a mother, like a mother nature. “Hardest hue to hold” perhaps saying that it’s hard to hold this recent gold, which refers to the green or the rich view where lush plantation blooms yet cannot last forever. “Her early leaf’s a flower,” in the third line, a recurrence of “her” for the second time indicates the cycle of seasons’ life. The leaf now changes into a flower in which represents that the living condition in a season is temporary, hence the landscape will eventually change. So fast of a season that it only lasts in an hour. That’s why “But only so an hour” in line 4 tells that springtime blossoms in such a brief, instant period. “Then leaf subsides to leaf,” in line 5 inform that leaves are constantly changing, such as plants which grow, then became wither, eventually die, and so on. Every life cycle brings a constant transformation.

        In line 6, “So Eden sank to grief” the poet brings the relation with the human condition as symbolizing by Adam and Eve’s lives which were no longer on Eden because of their disobedience. Therefore, it clearly shows that such perfect condition just like in Eden, won’t last forever. “So dawn goes down to day,” in line 7 this is obvious that dawn is something that always is a temporary state. Thus, sunrise will be replacing it, and the day will come after, then it will slide away into the night, and so on. At last, line 8 where it reads the same as the title, “Nothing gold can stay,” holds up the last yet important point. “Gold” as beautiful and as valuable as times by their true self-nature constantly change. There is nothing that lasts forever, maybe there are things that last way too long. However, those things eventually will change. So, take full advantage of what is precious, just as spring doesn’t last forever so that we may use our best time for outdoor activities such as exercise and play with loved ones.