Nothing gold can stay – College Essay Example
Nothing gold can stay – College Essay Example

Nothing gold can stay – College Essay Example

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  • Pages: 3 (814 words)
  • Published: April 2, 2018
  • Type: Review
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The speaker starts the poem with the first gold of spring. It is inferred the setting is spring because of the description of the first greens of nature.

Also, the use of the words green and gold allow the reader to picture a peaceful spring morning when the sun has just risen and given the dew struck leaves and grass a golden glow. TO add, the use Of the word gold also makes the nature seem of great worth or value. Then the speaker continues to state that gold is the hardest hue to hold. This second line uses alliteration of the initial "H" sound to grab the reader's attention.

Towards the start of the line nature s personified as a female, possibly Mother Nature, as the speaker gives nature qualities of holding on to the gold. ...

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By holding on to gold the speaker means being able to save or make the gold's beauty last. Towards the end of the line the speaker draws the readers attention back to the first line by rhyming the word "hold" with "gold" creating a rhyming couplet. The second line also has meter of three stressed syllables. This pattern is continued in line seven and the "symmetrical placement binds the poem as a whole" (Gibbs Harris).

To continue, in the third line the speaker uses a metaphor by eating her first leaf's a flower. The use of the metaphor connects the third line back to the first line, which states natures' first green is gold.

This portrays that just as the nature's gold fades at dawn, the flowers that bloom in spring eventually die from the sun i

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the summer. As Alfred R. Ferguson stated, 'The comparison is metaphoric rather than a simile-?that is, leaf is flower, not leaf resembles or is like flower. "As a result, the comparison of the leaf and the flower work together to stress the theme that nothing youthful or beautiful lasts forever.

In a different way, Frost again makes the connection hat gold on the leaf and the blooms from the flower don't last forever in the fourth line.

The speaker uses the word hour to exaggerate the shortness of the life of the flowers. To continue, the use of the word "hour" makes it figurative because most trees bloom all throughout spring. As an effect the use of the speaker's word play could connote that 'When something is so beautiful that you could stare at it forever, a week might as well be as short as an hour "(Shampoos Editorial Team).

As the poem progresses, the beauty begins to fade.

As Moroccan Marcus stated, "Appearance soon changes and its ideal beauty flees the mind. (Marcus). For example, in line five the speaker states that leaf "subsides" to leaf. The speakers has specific diction in this line that makes a difference in the meaning. To show, by using the word subsided it connotes that the flower with the blooms was more beautiful because it subsided or lowered or downgraded not it transformed or became.

This marks the "metamorphoses" of the flower back to its true leaf and the gold of nature back to green (Ferguson).

In the next line the speaker, uses an allusion to the Garden of Eden to compare the fall of the leaves to

the fall or sin of humans in the story f Adam and Eve in the bible. In the story of Adam and Eve, the garden was full of life and beauty just as the "natures first leaf is gold". Then after Eve sins and steals fruit from the garden, the story highlights the fault of mankind similar to how flower subsides to leaf.

Although different in both cases, the falls are both inevitable just like "dawn fades to day". This line is a turning point in the poem because, Frost reveals that the loss is inevitable, but, we can still enjoy these fleeting moments in nature and life while they last and look forward to all the beauty to come.

Moving forward in the next line the author uses alliteration of the words "dawn", "down", and "day' to stress the drowning of the beautiful colors of morning dawn as it transitions to day.

Furthermore, this line of alliteration of the "D" sound and three stressed syllables makes the reader think of the draining of the glowing gold colors seen at dawn as it subsides to the green. While the beauty of day may not be as great as that of dawn, Frost challenges the reader to accept that the change is a part of life and is unavoidable. Finally, the speaker stresses this in the final line where he states "Nothing gold can stay".

The "nothing' refers to he literacy devices used in the story like the gold of nature, blooms of flowers and The Garden of Eden.

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