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.
About the Poem
Robert Frost is one of those poets who can take just eight short lines and capture the weight of beauty, loss, and the passing of time. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” is deceptively simple—something you might read once and think you’ve understood—but the more you sit with it, the more layers it reveals.
At its heart, the poem reminds us that nothing beautiful lasts forever. The first flush of spring, the gold of new leaves, the brilliance of dawn—all are fleeting. Frost connects this natural cycle to the story of Eden, suggesting that even the purest moments of perfection can’t be held onto. Time moves forward, and everything inevitably changes.
I think this poem resonates so strongly because we’ve all had moments we wish we could freeze. Whether it’s the joy of youth, the fire of first love, or even a golden autumn day in Vermont, those moments are precious precisely because they’re fleeting. Frost doesn’t just mourn that loss—he honors it. By recognizing impermanence, we’re reminded to hold on a little tighter, to notice the beauty while it’s here.
It’s no wonder that this poem has found its way into popular culture too—most famously in S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, where it becomes a message about innocence and holding on to what makes us shine before the world tries to wear it away.
For me, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” isn’t just about nature, or even about youth. It’s about the reminder that life itself is made of fleeting golden moments. We can’t keep them, but we can cherish them, and maybe that’s enough.
About the Poet
Robert Frost (1874–1963) is often remembered as one of America’s quintessential poets, though he spent nearly a decade in England before his work was first published. He returned to the U.S. just as his career was beginning to take off, and over the course of his life he became one of the most widely read and beloved poets of the 20th century.
Frost’s poetry is rooted in the landscapes and rhythms of rural New England. He wrote in plainspoken language, but beneath the simplicity lies a deep philosophical and emotional complexity. His poems often explore the tension between humanity and nature, the fleetingness of beauty, and the choices that shape our lives.
He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times, more than any other poet, and in 1961 he read at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Despite his public persona as the homespun New England sage, Frost’s poetry frequently wrestles with darkness, loss, and impermanence—making “Nothing Gold Can Stay” a perfect example of his gift for distilling profound truth into the smallest of spaces.
For those of us in Vermont, Frost feels like a neighbor as well as a poet. He spent the last decades of his life here, teaching at Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School of English and writing in the Green Mountains he loved so well. He is buried in Bennington, Vermont, not far from where visitors can still walk the landscapes that inspired so much of his verse.
Joe
The Closet Professor 
September 23rd, 2025 at 7:47 am
I have wondered some over the years why Robert Frost seemed to be the only poet whose works flooded my K-12 education. I’m sure there were others, though Frost was clearly predominant.I had noted the simpleness and plainness of language being easier to read and understand, at least superficially, plus he was an American poet. Though I guess I had never realized before now that he was also a more “modern”, even a “living” poet for my K-12 teachers and school admins… having died just a handful of years before I was born, Frost would have been a figure in their lives at a time when we weren’t so readily networked world-wide.
Late in my junior year a teacher introduced me, well us as high school students, to the poetry works of Emerson and seems a little of Thoreau was there too. Didn’t really introduce us to the essays or other writings, at least not to any extent.I fell in love with the more philosophical works of both though more so Thoreau and could not wait to take another class from that teacher my senior year, delve more into the philosophers beyond their poetic works.So many of the kids struggled with Thoreau. I couldn’t get enough and to this day have an entire book shelf dedicated to his works… and once in a while will rattle off a rather applicable quote no one around me understands.