"Nothing Can Stay Gold" Poem by Robert Frost
1 .What is the effect of the words "subsides," "sank," and "down" in the poem?

2. What is the effect of the poem's rhyme scheme and meter? In other words, why such a formal poem?

3. If you could add two lines to this poem, what would they be?

4. What is the effect of the speaker's choice to make the title and the last line the same? Do you wish it had a different title? What might that be?

5. Can you think of something in your life that lost its newness and beauty? How did that make you feel? Similar to the speaker? And how does the speaker feel, anyway?

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.